


Selfmade Fanservice

by Gringos



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Comedy, F/F, Fanfictionception, Multi, Romance, Smut, Weirdness
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-22
Updated: 2018-02-17
Packaged: 2018-11-03 19:55:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 12
Words: 68,569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10974261
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gringos/pseuds/Gringos
Summary: A red haired girl called Emily is the most popular author for fanfiction between Widowmaker and Tracer there is. She is utterly devoted to their story, but a chance meeting with Tracer suddenly puts Emily between her idols, straight into harms way.





	1. A Foolish Girl’s Dreams

“ _Tiens, tiens_. It looks like we will be working together.”

There was a certain amusement in Widowmaker’s voice. It was taunting her.

“Don’t think I’m happy about that!”

Tracer looked the other way with something that could be described as a childish pout. She moved to the other side of the aircraft while making sure that her pulse pistols were combat ready.

Amber eyes followed the Brit with smug satisfaction.

“Aww come on now!”

That feeling would fade quickly though, as her Hispanic accomplice began to talk at Widow from the side.

“I know you two are not quite best _amigas_ , but this is a special occasion! We shouldn’t spoil that before the mission even started, should we?”

Sombra accompanied her on this venture, for better or worse. Her attitude was pissing off Widow almost hard enough to warrant violence. Almost.

“Remind me, why are we doing this again?”

“Have you slept through the briefing? It’s to cull the Mexican crime syndicates! Happens to be a common goal of Talon and Overwatch, even though _we_ just do it for business.”

“I know this…”

Widow was getting irritated. She didn’t like being talked down to, especially not by Sombra.

“That can’t be everything. Our new… _associates_ have this bogus sense of justice that would normally prohibit them to work with us.”

Apparently, it was Sombra’s turn to don a smug smile.

“Oh, in the end its always resources before morals. You just need to haggle for some concessions, disclose some information, maybe arrange some exchanging of prisoners aaand…”

Purply adorned hands slowly danced upwards in some form of soundless drum roll. As they reached their maximum height, small purple fireworks erupted in holo-screens behind Sombra, who was grinning cheerfully.

“…cooperation! The wonders of diplomacy!”

Widow felt like she was about to puke.

“Let’s just get this over with…”

Looking around the aircraft, the Overwatch agents outnumbered them. Widow had the suspicion that this also was part of the deal. It looked like Overwatch specifically chose newer agents that didn’t yet experience too much contact with Talon. Talon did the same by at least barring Reaper from this mission.

_To be frank, only Tracer and I have history._

A small smirk was back on Widow’s lips as she thought about that.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Her team was making good headway! The syndicate, or gang, however you want to call it really, had taken over this whole maze of streets, partly even fortified them. Sombra and Tracer worked in tandem to flank their enemies and take out defensive positions, while the rest of the squad was pushing at the front.

Still, her thoughts were preoccupied.

_Why are we working with notorious criminals?_

Lena had asked this more than once. Winston assured them that this escapade was worth the risk, but he wasn’t here, risking his hide, expecting betrayal at any moment.

Worst were the echoing shots. Every time a sniper shot rushed through the air to find the head of a criminal, Lena experienced chills. Sometimes she was a mere step away from the spider’s victims. From time to time she would look back to the bell tower Widow had chosen for her nest.

This whole ordeal was getting to Lena.

Suddenly she got shot at from a small alley to the side. A bullet grazed her cheek, prompting a hot, searing pain. Tracer was caught off-guard, having split her attention between friend and foe. She whirled around, only to witness D.Va dealing with her ambushers, pumping them full of steaming pulse rounds.

“We’re almost through already! These chumps are too easy, LOL!”

The big, pink MEKA turned around to an astonished Brit who looked like a dear in headlights.

“You okay Tracer?”

Lena blinked a few times before she finally answered.

“Uh, yeah sure! Let’s finish this, haha!”

“Yeah!”

D.Va activated her thrusters and moved back to coordinate with the team. Lena tried to get back into the action as well, flanking the next position with a quick blink. It was business as usual from there.

Soon enough the feeling crept up her spine that something wasn’t quite right. It took her a moment to figure out what was missing.

_Her shots…!_

Lena stopped in her tracks and looked around. They had almost finished their cleanup, but the fighting wasn’t done yet. A drug lords’ mansion they had yet to reach was at the heart of the operation.

_Why would she stop? Is she… in danger?_

Torn at the prospect, Lena finally decided to head back.

 

 

* * *

 

 

With long strides and constant blinks Tracer rushed up the bell tower as fast as she could. In mere moments, the top was in sight. She stormed up the last flight of stairs out into the open.

A cast iron bell hung above to the side. There were no walls, only stone pillars and a guard railing that gave way to a sunless dusk. Most importantly though, no signs of the spider.

“Where-“

Tracer’s lithe frame was suddenly grabbed and shoved up against one of the pillars, prompting an audible gasp for air. As soon as her eyes regained focus, she could see Widowmaker towering over her.

“Here I am.”

“Wha…”

“You are so predictable, _ma Chérie_.”

This wasn’t how she had imagined this going. Those blue hands were stuck to the pillar, one to each side of her head. Widowmaker was way too close, glowering at her with those amber eyes. Lena tried her best to refocus.

“What are you doing?! We have a miss-”

The sound of protest was quickly cut off, as Widow leaned in to lock lips with her momentary captive. They were cool, but full of experience. Lena’s hazelnut eyes opened wide. She struggled to keep her composure, first meekly, then more forcefully tried to shove Widowmaker away.

She succeeded only because the French woman felt like it, leaning back just mere inches.

“What did you say in the aircraft about working with me? ‘Don’t think I’m happy about that’? You are such a bad liar, you know that?”

Lena’s cheeks were flustered as she tried to protest.

“I’m not as cold as you are, it’s… it’s not that easy!”

“You just need to get better at acting, _ma petite bête_.”

Widowmaker used the time of their banter to wrap her arms around the little Brit. Her hands moved below the pilot’s jacket to caress her back. In the meanwhile, she lowered her head to kiss the nape of Lena’s neck. The warmth of her unlikely lover had fascinated Widowmaker ever since they by chance discovered an affection for doing these things together.

“Hey, s-stop it already! We can’t be doing that now, luv!”

Lena’s breath went ragged. She looked around, down into the alleys where their team was advancing into the drug lord’s mansion.

“You’re not exactly resisting that much.”

More instinctively than anything, Lena returned the embrace. Her thoughts were in shambles, just as her breathing. She couldn’t even properly answer the accusation, which only served to fluster her more.

“W-What if they see us…”

Widow seemed to be amused at the thought, judging by the way she chuckled in a deep, distinctively French way. One of her hands moved up to the front, slowly slipping below the tight yellow spandex pants, while the other caressed one of Lena’s hot red cheeks. Those cold lips traveled upwards, until Widow could whisper into her little plaything’s ear.

“We could open your com link and let them listen. I think your little friends would be positively ecstatic to hear what you are up to, don’t you, _ma Chérie_?”

Lena’s eyes opened up wide. The French seductress began to caress her in ways that made it impossible to remain silent, prompting stifled, desperate moans. The other hand that had caressed her cheeks now inched upwards, slowly threatening to press a finger into the ear where her commlink resided.

“A-Amélie, you wouldn’t…!”

She only used that name when her French lover would go too far. Lena knew how much she resented it, but today the name would have no effect. Instead, Widow whispered another taunt laden with sadistic satisfaction.

“It won’t be a problem if you just stay silent, no? Shouldn’t be too hard for a hero like you.”

A shiver ran down the Brit’s spine a she squirmed against the pillar. Lena wouldn’t be capable of staying quiet and they both knew it. The thought of being exposed to her team was unbearably humiliating.

“Amélie, please…!”

But not just that. The thought excited her in ways she wouldn’t have imagined. Something was building up inside of her, not just by the hand that caressed her intimately, but also by the tip of the finger that slowly entered her ear.

“Amélie…”

Hana’s voice answered on the other side.

“ _Tracer, is that you? What’s going on?_ ”

Lena tried to hold back, but it was too much. She shivered all over, moaning loudly.

“Amélie…!”

“ _Amélie!_ ”

 

 

* * *

 

 

“Emily!”

A flat hand hit the table right beside where her head was resting, prompting the redhead to straighten up quicker than a startled mouse.

“I’m awake!”

There was a small moment of awkward silence between the freckled girl and her superior.

“You are now.”

She stared at her boss with wide eyes, trying to keep the embarrassment down.

“I… I wasn’t asleep Mister Bernstein, I was just… resting, yes! I swear!”

Her hands quickly alt-tabbed away from the Word document on her computer screen. The way Bernstein looked at her, he already knew about her little pastime and was considerably irritated by it… especially since she fell asleep while tinkering on a rather compromising bell tower scene.

“Sometimes I don’t know what to make of you, Emily.”

His hand retracted from the desk while he let out a heavy sigh. Bernstein was a tall, middle-aged man with horned glasses and a stern demeanor. A sense of professionalism was practically oozing off his oiled back, brown hair in addition to his old-timey suit and tie. Emily squirmed in her seat under his stern consternation.

“Mind you, even if, once in a full moon, you manage to actually focus on your journalism to deliver stellar pieces of writing, if it wasn’t for your family, I would already have you demoted to a more menial job for your poor work ethic.”

A shadow on Bernstein’s face made him look especially menacing in his disappointment. The sun had already left. It was a dark, autumn day outside. The only sources of light in Emily’s little office were the holo-monitor of her computer and a wall light imitating the look of an old gas lamp.

“It won’t happen again Mister Bernstein, I promise! I’ve already finished the story about the TX-65 murder case for tomorrow’s edition.”

Her boss looked around as she tried to appease him. The same feeling of long forgotten journalistic values that was oozing off Bernstein was present in every fiber of the room. Instead of the clinically white material so many corporations used for their departments nowadays, the offices of the Evening Standard were styled with well-polished wood and imitations of early 19th century decorations. After the big newspaper crash of 2022, the Bernstein family bought the business and doubled down on what they called the ‘English feeling’, thereby carving their own niche in the market.

“Well enough. I trust that you were as objective as always. Omnicide is a controversial topic to say the least.”

Emily frowned.

_Objective… more like ‘nothing too pro-omnic’._

“I… tried, sir.”

Her superior regarded her carefully.

“Miss Emily, you are aware of the climate outside?”

“Yes, sir…”

“We wouldn’t want a paid gang of anti-omnic goons to come in here to vandalize the building, do we now?”

“Of course not, sir! I tried my best! Martha is reviewing the story, she can surely attest to that!”

“Martha left half an hour ago.”

Emily blinked in surprise, looking for the clock on her holo-monitor. It was seven pm.

_I slept for two hours?!_

Bernstein’s voice snapped her out of the surprise.

“Anyways, I’ve got a job for you…”

_Huh?_

“Originally Anderson was meant to cover this story, but he got delayed on his way back from Glasgow.”

Emily needed a moment to process.

_Anderson was supposed to cover…_

Her eyes lit up as she began to understand what her boss had offered her just now. Her embarrassment from a moment ago was gone. Instead, she clapped her hands together in excitement.

“The Mondatta speech!”

“I take that as your approval, Miss Emily. The speech is in about half an hour. Just remember to stay obj-“

“Thank you so much Mister Bernstein!”

The red-haired girl didn’t even let him finish. She had jumped out of her chair, straight into throwing her arms around Bernstein. She hugged him tightly in a way that he was clearly not comfortable with, then picked her things up in a whirlwind and left through the front door in about the time it took for her superior to readjust his glasses.

 

 

* * *

 

 

A prominent omnic voice echoed across the plaza. The omnic in question was Mondatta, an advocate for coexistence of omnics and humans.

“Bweep?”

“No thanks, I’m fine Cassy.”

The cool autumn chill on this evening did not bother Emily and she said as much to her floating companion. She was much too excited for the speech. Something else bothered her much more.

_I can’t see sh…_

“Make sure to have a good view up there!”

CA1 was a small, orb-like machine with two ‘eyes’ that functioned as cameras and a small screen that it could rotate around its body. This little robot belonged to Emily.

It usually liked to keep the screen below the ‘eyes’ and show a video of a mouth to emulate being human. Her colleagues were genuinely creeped out by that. Emily just thought it was cute.

“Bwoodee! Bweet-doo!”

“Yes, I know the quality would be better with the latest upgrade. I told you three times now, I can’t afford that kind of money.”

“Bwoop…”

A large crowd of people, both human and omnic, gathered around to listen to Mondatta’s speech in King’s Row. Emily arrived moments before the speech had started. Luckily, her simple-minded companion was way less constrained to the ground than she was. CA1 all too happily hovered over the crowd to gather some footage for her.

**_“Omnic and human… are one within the Iris.”_ **

People cheered around her. All Emily could do now was listen. She had a little tablet and stylus with her to take notes, but decided against taking any. Listening to the speech for the first time without distraction was much too important to her.

_I’ll listen to it on repeat all night anyway._

A chuckle stole its way on Emily’s lips. A moment later however, it was replaced by a baffled expression, as she noticed that her little bot had turned away from the stage.

“What are you doing?”

A cold shiver ran down her spine.

_Is he malfunctioning, or just mad because of the upgrade?_

CA1 units were simple, but also known to possess self-aware tendencies. This was about the worst moment for that to manifest. Emily absolutely could not botch this story, or else…

_Bernstein will have my hide!_

“Cassy please, get the speaker back into focus!”

“Brzzzt!”

It didn’t listen to Emily’s hushed words. Instead, her little bot floated downwards. Her eyes blinked a few times as she stared into her own face on the little monitor that was capturing what CA1 saw.

“Now’s not the time to show me something! We have to…”

Then he rewound the footage.

A scene on the rooftops of King’s Row unfolded before her. CA1’s sensitive hearing must have detected the distant sound of pulse fire among the volume of the crowd and the loudspeakers. The shots came from a fast moving hero clad in orange and brown colors, hunting for a figure that was difficult to make out behind the night sky.

Emily, however, knew them both too well.

_What… here?!_

Her heart began to race. Emily turned around immediately and made her way through the masses. Her gaze was glued in the direction of the rooftops above, but she could barely see what was happening.

“Keep your eyes on those two, Cassy!”

There was a faint sound of glass breaking in the distance, drowned out by a loud cheer from the crowd. Emily still tried to make her way through. She felt the need to shout to keep communicating with CA1.

“Where are they?”

“Bwee-zeee!”

Emily followed the eyes of the robot and watched as the two figures reappeared and jumped across a gap between two large rooftops. As she scanned the area, the redheaded reporter quickly decided to take a set of fire escape stairs to get up there. Finally past the crowd, she started to sprint with CA1 following closely above her head, buzzing with excitement.

“Stay focused Cassy! This will be the story of the century! “

Just as they climbed the first few flights of stairs, a deafening pulse explosion shocked the plaza. Emily watched with wide eyes as she saw the two figures up in the air. The mysterious figure, mid fall, had a sniper rifle pointed straight at the hero. A resounding shot pierced the air. The hero however didn’t care to be shot and promptly vanished out of sight, leaving behind a light blue aftereffect.

_Amazing!_

“Have you got that?”

Emily was star struck by the fight happening above as she scaled the stairs as fast as she could, so much so that only shrieks and screams of terror from the crowd below got her out of that trance.

Then she saw the real victim. Unlike hers, CA1’s eyes had immediately followed the path of the bullet to its intended destination: Mondatta. She could see the omnic’s body, his head crackling with electricity from the impact wound.

Emily’s heart sank into her stomach. She could feel herself rapidly getting ill. She couldn’t start to comprehend all the implications of this assassination. The situation was bad before, but with this alone London was on the verge of becoming a battleground.

CA1 directed a saddened buzz towards her, drawing Emily out of her thoughts.

“Y-Yeah, we have to go on! We don’t want to be down there right now.”

Both of them pressed on, as parts of the crowd below got increasingly and audibly riled up. Police sirens roared in the distance. There were three more stories to climb, but they were high enough to hear a high-pitched, panicking voice above on the roof.

**_“Why? Why would you do this!?”_ **

The roaring engine of an aircraft above drowned out the villains retort. Emily merely heard the same high-pitched voice scream in pain moments later.

Emily’s heart got up from her stomach and beat straight into her throat. She motioned for CA1 to be careful, right as they took the last steps of the fire scape stairs. Her companion dared to look up on the rooftop and showed her what he saw by angling his little screen downward. It showed a violet clad woman.

_That’s… The Widowmaker! The real deal!_

A sick sense of excitement and dread got a hold of her. Emily watched her board the aircraft with picture perfect steps worthy of a super model on the catwalk, sniper rifle leisurely leant on her shoulder. The engine sounds grew louder with the liftoff and only moments later, the deadly assassin was gone.

As if waking up from a freeze, Emily shuddered and ran the last steps upwards.

The roof was empty.

_Where…?_

The air up here was sharp and chilling. She almost didn’t catch a small groan coming from below. Emily went up to investigate.

_Oh dear god!_

There was a smaller roof down there, where a body had crash-landed. Quickly, without really thinking, Emily tried to climb down the steep wall. There was a bulky ventilation unit installed in the middle of the wall which Emily let herself fall to, almost losing her balance. The unit also made squeaky sounds with her weight on it, as if it would give way any minute now.

“Uhm…”

She did not only have to worry about the ventilation unit giving way. Jumping was also not an option. There were still several meters of way to go down and Emily didn’t feel like breaking a leg today.

_I got myself kinda stranded, haven’t I?_

Emily grew a bit nervous as she remembered being scared of heights.

“Bweep-bo!”

“Huh?”

The redhead looked a bit concerned at CA1’s suggestion.

“A-Are you sure? I mean I have gained a bit of weight…”

_Damn, delicious cheesecakes…_

“Bweep Bweep Bweep!”

“Okay okay!”

Emily was not convinced, but she got a hold of her little orb-like companion either way. The choices were either that or jumping, no matter how she looked at it. Emily pressed her eyes shut and made a step forward.

She fell abruptly with a yelp and clamored to hold onto CA1. Then both of them slowly descended downwards until Emily had ground back below her feet.

She opened her eyes again and breathed through a few times with immense relief.

“Good… good boy, I’ll reconsider on the upg…”

Then she saw the body.

Tracer lay on the ground, writhing and groaning pathetically.

A cold shiver washed over Emily. She hesitated, not knowing what to do. Then she rushed to her idols side. She knelt down beside Tracer and tried her best not to panic.

“A-Are you okay?”

 

 

* * *

 

 

The cargo hold door, upon request, did not close fully until they were well above London.

She liked it that way. Watching the chaos below reminded her of a sprawling, collapsing nest of insects. Prey to the spider, all of them.

There was something unusual though. She saw a red headed girl with a camera robot in tow up on the roof where she had just claimed her latest victory.

_Curieux._

Widowmaker contemplated on quickly adding a second victim for the day. That little journalist surely had footage of the assassin leaving the scene. Then she observed her making her way down onto another roof and decided against it.

_No use. I already left the foolish girl alive anyway._

There was a smirk on her blue lips, as the cargo hold finally and fully closed. Widow thoroughly breathed through, enjoying the thrills caused by the afterglow of the kill. A small shiver ran through her body.

“You always look so perverted afterwards, do you know that?”

Widow tensed up and her eyes opened wide. She looked around and locked gazes with a girl clothed in shrill, violet colors. Sombra was smirking at her teasingly from a bench on the side of the cargo hold.

_That little shit…_

“What are you doing here?”

Sombra made a dismissive gesture, looking at her purple fingernails.

“Oh, nothing _compañera._ Just watching you get off after a kill like you usually do.”

“I am _not_ getting off.”

She was indeed quite sweaty and felt a bit hotter than usual, but Widow attributed that to the action on the ground.

“Suuure. Where’s that blush coming from by the way?”

Widow glared daggers at the Mexican girl. That infuriating smirk was still sticking to Sombra’s face like glue. Widow wanted to tear it off, but remained outwardly calm.

“What would interest me more though... what’s getting you all hot and bothered? Driving a bullet through some preacher’s head? Or… that you bested the little Miss pilot?”

Sombra stood up and circled towards Widow. She held her own chin with the left hand and appraised her colleague curiously, then continued her line of questioning.

“You have a thing for her?”

Widow abruptly took a step towards the extravagantly clothed hacker.

“ _Vous êtes délirant._ If you’ve just arrived to mock me, I will just kill you in return.”

Sombra stumbled back and quickly held up her hands on chest height to calm the situation.

_Folding at the slightest hint of pushback, as expected._

If there was anything she liked about her encounters with Sombra, then it were moments like these.

“No no, of course not _amiga!_ Good old Sombra wouldn’t do something mean like that! We’re friends, right?”

“No.”

“Right! Friends! So I thought to myself: “Sombra, what would your good friend think if she knew that somebody had actually predicted her kill?”

Widow raised an eyebrow.

“There’s a leak in the organization?”

“No no, nothing mundane like that! Somebody _actually wrote a story_ about you killing Mondatta today.”

Widow didn’t answer immediately. Sombra’s smirk slowly returned as she noticed the tugging on her proverbial fishing pole. She moved closer to her colleague and quickly produced a holographic screen in the air resembling a modern text file format. The document contained paragraphs upon paragraphs. Widow quickly read a few lines, then more, and more. Her amber eyes darted about the holographic page for a while, before she looked at the date of the story.

_Somebody wrote this two months ago._

“You’re right.”

“Of course I am! When the speech was announced back then, _someone_ decided to make this into a fanfic.”

Widow looked at her with contempt. She hated these abbreviations of nonsense words that young people used.

“A what?”

“A fanfic! Fan fiction! Come on, you never heard of that? It’s when you write fiction about your favorite characters! You’re quite popular, you know?”

The idea of having something akin to ‘fans’ had never occurred to Widowmaker. She didn’t quite know how to feel about that, other than annoyed. Sombra continued in the meanwhile.

“This one isn’t just about the killing though. It’s more of a trigger event for something else. Have you figured out for what?”

Widow frowned. She didn’t want to play Sombra’s games, but she had indeed figured out the premise and hated how the idea actually intrigued her.

“The foolish girl driven mad by failure.”

At this point, the aircraft sat down on the Talon base and the cargo hold door opened outwards. Talon personnel rushed onto the airfield to refuel the bird and see the two agents off.

“Bingo! I’m glad you like the premise, sweetie.”

“If you call me that one more time…”

Sombra hurriedly moved to disembark first, turning halfway around to wave at her with wriggling fingers.

“It’s in your e-mail account, be sure to take a look! No need to thank me. _¡_ _Diviértete,_ _amiga!_ ”

Widow watched her go with an annoyed gaze. Then she left for the medical examination, as she always did.

On the way, Widow quickly decided for herself that she definitely wouldn’t read something that Sombra recommended. For the rest of the day she would also ponder how she could get away with shutting ‘that little shit’ up for good.

 

 

* * *

 

 

_‘Adieu Chèrie.’_

The words still rang in Lena’s ears. They made her sick to the stomach. Well, either that or it was another reaction of her body, still recovering from the shock of hitting solid ground.

Lena heard the engines of an aircraft above the roof she was flung off. She could only imagine that the Talon agent that got her into this predicament used it to leave the scene.

Pain in her chest made her wince. She writhed on cold concrete, shivered and whimpered pathetically. The weight of failure and loss concerning the brutal murder of her idol, Mondatta, and her inability to prevent it crashed in on Lena. It added to the numbing physical agony coursing through her. Tears streaked down her cheeks as she forgot about herself.

“Are you okay?”

_Am I okay…? No… I’m so done…_

“Can you hear me? Please!”

Lena suddenly realized that this wasn’t a voice in her head. It was quite real, as was the hand shaking her at the shoulder.  
She instinctively tried to look up and gazed into the light brown eyes of a red-haired girl, beautifully illuminated by moonlight. Her pain was gone for that one moment. Lena felt like she had been struck by lightning, fascinated by the concerned look on the cutely freckled face so close above her own.

“W-Who…”

Then the pain returned with a groan.

“Ah, you’re conscious! I’m a j-… I’m Emily!”

Lena wrecked her brain, but couldn’t think of knowing an Emily. This must be a civilian from the crowd. She could’ve died of shame. Tears still kept coming, though she slowly brought them under control, not wanting to look any weaker than she already was.

“Are you hurt?”

“It’s… it’s fine. I’m fine…”

Tracer lied and attempted to smile, which failed horribly. She slowly tried to steady herself sitting up, but immediately flinched when she moved her left leg. This Emily person held her on shoulder and back so Lena wouldn’t just crash back down again.

“You don’t look fine at all... I’ll call an ambulance.”

Lena felt dreadful just thinking about it. The last thing she wanted to do was face more people she had failed.

“NO!”

“O-Okay, no ambulance, got it. Can you stand?”

Lena felt a sudden pang of regret for lashing out like that.

_This isn’t like me…_

Yet this person still wanted to help her so bad. She saw it in those light brown eyes. The concern in them made her want to break down. Lena felt weak. Still, she tried to stand up and flinched a bunch more. Emily stood by her side and helped her on her way into a standing positon.

“The left side is hurting you, right? I’ll support you there.”

“You don’t have to…”

It was too late. Emily had already taken Lena’s arm around her shoulder and held her by the side, easing the weight on her left leg. She could feel the red-haired girl’s warm body press against hers through the fabric of their clothing. It was weirdly comforting in a way.

“How should I call you?”

_She doesn’t know me...?_

“It’s… Lena.”

“You don’t want to go to a clinic either, right?”

“No, I… I want to go home…”

Lena suddenly felt incredibly drained. The bright smile beside her however made everything a tiny bit less miserable. Together they slowly made their way to another set of fire escape stairs.

“Okay Lena, let’s go home!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _amigos ~ friends_   
>  _Curieux ~ Curious_   
>  _ma Chérie ~ my sweetheart_   
>  _compañera ~ partner_   
>  _Tiens, tiens ~ Well, well_   
>  _ma petite bête ~ My little fool_   
>  _Vous êtes délirant ~ You are delusional_   
>  _¡Diviértete, amiga! ~ Have fun, my friend!_


	2. Death and Panties, not in that order

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lena and Emily make their arduous journey home while Widow most definitely didn't read that one fanfic Sombra wanted her to.

Emily was convinced she would die today. It would be a sweet death, caused by a cuteness overload. The injured hero was constantly falling over her words and by now clung to Emily for support instead of trying to act tough. Even just the way Lena kept looking over to her, staring at her face with starry eyes, was enough to make her fangirl heart nearly burst in her chest.

_She’s probably just delirious, quit it Emily…_

Besides deep breathing, Emily had at least one more secret weapon that helped her keep composure.

_Nothing gets me sober like having to explain all of this to Mister Bernstein tomorrow…_

A small shiver ran through Emily at the thought before Lena finally got off the phone and caught her attention again.

“It’s… over there… on the 3rd floor…”

“The yellow tinted house? An apartment?”

“Yeah, it’s… kinda… you know.”

She heard how Lena was chuckling self-consciously and quickly stopped herself from commenting on the modesty of the building.

_Lena would probably like it if we were just talking like normal girls._

“It must be really cozy when you have visitors at home on a season like this.”

“You think so?”

“I’m imagining it that way. A couch, a blanket and some hot cocoa in a comfy living room. Just the thing against the cold right now, hmm?”

“Yeah, it’s freezing! You must be a psychic, ‘cause I have a couch and some cocoa upstairs. I’ll make sure to invite you for some when I’m back on my feet.”

Emily had thought about Tracer’s feelings for years, explored them in dozens of stories. Nevertheless, she was still surprised that she could somewhat understand her. After all, there was never any confirmation for her theorizing.

_Maybe we are alike._

“That sounds nice.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

She was confident that she could’ve forced her way home without any outside help, if she wanted to. Lena was secretly glad that she wouldn’t have to though. Being vulnerable like this just once in her heroic life felt weirdly liberating to Lena.

There was of course another kind of vulnerable that she had to live through just a while ago, being lost in time and all, but this was different. In this situation she didn't have to worry. The hero found herself readily clinging to her rescuer after a while.

_She’s kinda cute._

The thought just came to her while stealing another glance to the side. Lena didn’t particularly know that she had a thing for redheads up until now, but it became increasingly obvious. The light skin, the freckles, the vibrant color of her hair…

_Don’t think about stuff like that! She’s so nice to help me home, let it go Lena…_

“It’s… over there… on the 3rd floor…”

“The yellow tinted house? An apartment?”

Lena chuckled quietly.

_I know, right? Pretty pathetic for a hero._

“Yeah, it’s… kinda… you know.”

“It must be really cozy when you have visitors at home on a season like this.”

Lena found herself blushing and blinking with surprise.

“You think so?”

“I’m imagining it that way. A couch, a blanket and some hot cocoa in a comfy living room. Just the thing against the cold right now, hmm?”

Lena imagined both of them doing just that and felt oddly happy about it.

“Yeah, it’s freezing! You must be a psychic, ‘cause I have a couch and some cocoa upstairs. I’ll make sure to invite you for some when I’m back on my feet.”

“That sounds nice.”

Lena smiled inwards as they approached the building in silence.

_When was the last time somebody talked to me like this?_

The hero was absorbed in thought for a moment. At least the pain in her leg had become bearable in Emily’s company.

_Like a normal girl._

They arrived at the door to the apartment complex. Lena fished for the key in her pilot’s jacket. It took a moment to find it, but neither of them seemed to mind all that much to just stand there, pressed up to one another. When she finally found it, her hand was shaking a bit too much to properly aim for the keyhole.

It was embarrassing.

Lena couldn’t help her thoughts from drifting, trying to figure out whether her heart was beating so fast from the exhaustion, embarrassment or the company.

“Lena?”

“Huh?”

“Let’s do it together, okay?”

Lena blinked a few times.

_L-Lets… do it… together?!_

Her heartrate skyrocketed for a moment while she stared at her companion for the night.

_Did she… she can’t… can she? W-What should I say!_

Emily claimed initiative over the speechless hero and gently took her hand, guiding the key towards the appropriate hole, so they could open the door together.

_Oh._

Lena was dumbfounded.

_What am I thinking?_

Emily smiled at her with kind intentions, oblivious of the tumult she had just caused.

_Oh god…_

“Lena? Are you well?”

_I don’t even know if she’s into girls!_

“Lena?”

“Y-Yes?!”

“Is everything okay? You look like you have developed a fever.”

They were still standing there before the opened front door. Emily was carefully holding her hand while Lena’s cheeks blushed hotly in a bright pink color.

“Ah! E-Everything’s okay luv, no problem, haha!”

Lena tried to downplay it, but before too long her concerned rescuer was feeling her forehead for temperature.

“You feel pretty hot…”

There she was right. Lena actually felt hotter by the second.

“… but it doesn’t really feel hot like a fever. Still, I’ll get you into bed as soon as I can.”

Emily smiled again, totally oblivious.

_Oh god, I’m gonna die…_

 

 

* * *

 

 

Sombra was sitting with her legs crossed on the seat of her chair in front of her computer rig. Her room was dark and since this was her domain, she only wore a long, grey shirt and panties.

“Why do these units have to be named ‘Reapers’? I just can’t take them seriously…”

Little figures battled against each other in front of her on the screen. Now some tiny, red jetpack soldiers shot at ugly looking, blue mining drones. One after another, the little drones popped in miniscule flesh explosions.

“ _Ghah!_ But I should! I lost to them too damn muuuch…”

She threw herself back into her seat as “DEFEAT” flashed in front of her holo-screen. She continued to whine and grumble for a while longer before she would start her next Starcraft match.

“ _¡Jolín!_ I’m never gonna beat D.Va like this…”

Then suddenly the door to her room was thrown open. Sombra got massively startled, almost falling from her seat.

_“Quelle gueule?! Qui a osé écrire ça?!”_

The hacker quickly whirled her chair around and clamored to stay on top of her seat instead of ungraciously slipping to the floor. She stared at Widow, who was standing in her doorway with an even worse blush than she had seen today in the aircraft. The French assassin was visibly worked up about something, so much so that she forgot to curse in a language that Sombra could understand.

“ _Hola amiga_ , I didn’t expect-“

She stopped in awe in the middle of her lie. Of course, she expected Widow to be confronting her at some point about the story, but hadn’t quite imagined it like this. Widow was after all only wearing a black lingerie top and matching panties.

_She walked through the complex… like that?!_

It was suddenly incredibly hot in the darkened room. Trying to stay on the chair had disheveled Sombra somewhat to the point that her shirt wasn’t quite covering the lower half of her body.

“Who wrote that story?!”

“Huh?”

Widow was rushing at her. Sombra panicked at that, quickly pulling down her shirt to hide her panties.

“What-”

“The one you showed me, you little shit!”

The Mexican girl’s eyes went wide as Widow grabbed her by the throat, pushing her further into the seat and the chair back into the table where her rig was standing on. She could still breathe somewhat, but the sheer act totally shocked her.

“O-Of course, I remember!”

“You better! Who wrote it?!”

Widow, whose head was lit up like a blue tinted peach, shoved a phone screen in front of Sombra’s face. It was fixated at the top of chapter 4. Sombra vaguely remembered that this was the chapter where a mad Tracer confronted Widow.

_Chapter 4… That fight scene was so awesome! And right afterwards Tracer totally took advantage of the weakened Widowmaker…_

She must have grinned while thinking back to the story. The pressure on her throat increased.

_Oh._

“Cease that shit-eating grin, or I will do it for you! Who?!”

Sombra quickly looked at the phone screen again. The author avatar on the page was a cute bunny with a small crown on its head. The author’s name read ‘Miju’ just below that. Widow wouldn’t be able to make anything of it, and that’s what Sombra had counted on.

Air was getting sparse, so the Mexican girl hurriedly answered.

“S-She’s… a reporter f-for the Evening Standard!”

Widow finally let go of her throat, but still looked at her with killing intent. Sombra coughed a few times and shivered in her seat.

“Her name. Tell me.”

“ _Dios mio_ , would it hurt to say ‘please’?”

Those amber eyes got dangerously thin, so Sombra was quick to correct herself with an awkward laugh. She knew how much Widow loved to have someone grovel before her.

“Y-You don’t have to though! Anything for a good friend, right?”

Widow was getting dangerously close again.

“The. Name.”

“H-Her name’s Emily! Please don’t hurt me…?”

The little hacker’s heart began to beat wildly, partly in fear. A blue hand closed in again and made Sombra flinch, closing the eye shut on the side of approach. Rather than strangling her a second time however, a pair of fingers caressed her cheek. Widow also leaned down and pressed a soft kiss to the little hacker’s forehead.

“Good girl.”

Sombra was stunned, unlike Widow, whom she watched turning around to leave the darkened room. Then she was alone.

_So kind all of the sudden!_

Her body sunk down the seat unhindered this time. She had developed quite the sweat, which made her skin shine in the faint light of her holo-screen.

_She’s really getting off on this too, isn’t she?_

A stupid smile developed on Sombra’s lips.

_I need new panties…_

 

 

* * *

 

 

Emily was definitely going to die tonight, although the cause of death was shifting towards embarrassment.

_One Freudian Slip, yeah sure, but two in a row?! If this goes on I’ll have invited her for a romp half a dozen times before the sun’s up…_

They were going up the stairs in dead silence. It was a bit more work for them, since Lena had a harder time climbing up the steps, but neither complained. Together they ascended three stories and finally stood in front of the modest apartment. Lena pressed the key into Emily’s hand and that was that.

The smell of Lena assaulted poor Emily as they entered the apartment. Her head got dizzy for a moment and it was a lot more difficult than before to avoid going full on fan-girl-mode.

_She’s a normal girl. Think of Bernstein. Totally normal. Think of Bernstein._

There was a small shiver and Emily had herself back under control.

“I didn’t really tidy up when I left, sorry ‘bout that.”

“Who tidies up when they’re not expecting guests, right?”

“Some boring busybodies!”

They both giggled in unison as Lena led Emily to the bedroom. The chaos in there was more pronounced. The double bed wasn’t made and worn clothes were lying about the small room, including underwear. Emily forced herself to ignore those. Still, she couldn’t help asking about it.

“That’s a big bed. Are you living with someone?”

Lena took a moment to answer as they were going towards the side of the bed. Emily tried to lay her down carefully on top of the mattress.

“No, but… I wouldn’t mind if someone would.”

Time seemed to go a lot slower for a moment. She felt herself being pulled down onto the bed, on top of Lena. The little Brit below her had a sly smile on her lips as they locked gazes. She stared into Lena’s hazelnut eyes and felt her own growing bigger. It was all she could do to keep herself from hyperventilating as their bodies pressed up against each other

_What the heck just Nononononono, think of Bernstein, this is too fast, I can’t, Bernstein, she smells so nice whattheheckamithinking, Sternbeiwhyisshelookingatmelikethatohgodohgodohgodohgod…_

“Emily!”

“H-Huh?!”

Lena was making a grimace and breathed heavily.

“You’re lying on my bad leg!”

“OH!”

 

 

* * *

 

 

That wasn’t the first time that a girl had fled Lena’s bedroom with the last-minute-panic syndrome, but Emily was certainly the fastest. Her cheeks had turned as red as her hair as she stormed out of the room, apologizing along the way. Even if it was Lena that had pulled her onto the bed.

_Why did I have to do that…_

At first, it was a bit harder to focus since her leg hurt so much, but the pain steadily moved towards the heart.

_... First the assassination, then I alienate my cute rescuer. Fuck! I’m so useless!_

Lena gripped one of her cushions and buried her head in it.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Emily cowered on the floor, leaning against one of the walls, keeping her legs close to her body. She was still trying to keep herself from hyperventilating, rummaging through her handbag to find the little inhaler she needed for her asthma. Once she used it to breathe in, it was easier to think again.

A shiver went through her body.

_I should’ve known! That was so Tracer to go overboard like that._

The thoughts instinctively came to her while her heart was still beating like crazy.

_She can’t keep anything in, can she? I bet she’ll scream._

Right on queue a muffled scream was barely audible through the bedroom door. Emily giggled stupidly at that, but couldn’t quite figure out what she was supposed to do right now.

_Calming down would be a good idea._

A few minutes passed with more muffled screams on the other side of the wall, but they too stopped after a while. Emily looked around the apartment in the meantime. Apart from the chaos, she could make out all kinds of souvenirs from parts of the world that Tracer had been to. Part of a shelf was solely dedicated to plane models. She recognized pictures of important moments in flight history and even a portrait of maybe the most prominent female pilot of all time: Amelia Earhart.

_She likes to travel. And there’s so much aviation stuff!_

The more Emily looked around, the less she actually calmed down. On the contrary, she got more excited by the second, trembling a bit and fidgeting uselessly with her hands. There was a stupid smile on her lips and she couldn’t stop herself from squealing like an idiot fangirl.

_I kinda imagined it like this! I feel like I’m in a story!_

The ringing of the doorbell startled Emily immensely. She lost hold on her inhaler and tried clumsily to get it into her hands again. Then she inhaled once more before she stood up and went to the door.

The bellringing was from someone directly in front of the apartment. Emily was nervous about opening it.

_Who will that be?_

Emily pushed down the handle and slowly opened the front door.

“Greetings.”

A stunningly beautiful blonde woman in a white polo shirt, jacket and jeans was standing on the other side of the threshold. The beauty had her hair in a ponytail and carried a bag of tools at her side.

“Hello!”

_That’s Mercy!_

Emily often used the Medic as side character in her stories, so she kind of knew her almost as well as Tracer. There was a whole fandom surrounding her and captain Amari. Some of her friends would absolutely kill for this moment. Emily tried to not look too giddy.

_That's who Lena was on the phone with?_

“I’m sorry, I don’t know you? What are you doing in Tracer’s home?”

“O-Oh! I brought her home, sorry. My name is Emily!”

_Too excited dimwit, calm down!_

The redhead was still a bit shaken from being pulled into bed with her idol earlier, but eventually she got a hold of herself.

“That’s awfully nice, thank you for helping our little Lena.”

The doctor simply entered at this point, since it wasn’t really on Emily to decide whether she should intrude or not. While the redhead was busy closing the door, Mercy had already turned around to face her.

“That’s a camera bot.”

Mercy gestured towards CA1.

“…and you are a reporter.”

A cold shiver ran along Emily’s back. She tried to say something.

“I-“

“That’s an awfully expensive model. You’re working for a corporate tabloid, aren’t you? I should destroy that thing and throw you out this instant.”

Emily was wide eyed and frozen to the ground. CA1 hurried to hide behind it's owner and projected a large, red X on his little screen at the idea of being destroyed.

“N-No! I mean, yes, I’m a reporter, b-but I’m not… I’m with the Evening Standard! Please don’t hurt Cassy!”

As journalist and Overwatch aficionado, Emily knew too well that corporate and government controlled media all over the world had a decent interest in the past of taking the organization down a notch.

_They would react with mistrust to any journalist, wouldn't they?_

“The Evening Standard? They don’t use bots like these.”

“You’re right! Cassy… he’s mine, he was a present from someone.”

Emily looked uncomfortable just by mentioning it. Mercy raised an eyebrow.

“That’s an expensive present if I ever saw one.”

_She won’t let go that easily, will she?_

“Cassy, can you show her?”

“Bweee-o.”

The little bot cautiously floated in front of the blonde's gaze and displayed his own commercial contract. Mercy’s blue eyes scanned the document until her other eyebrow was raised, too.

“That family…”

A scared Emily closed the distance between them. She was trembling a bit as she carefully took one of Mercy’s hands in hers.

“Please don’t tell anyone, I beg you! I’m not here to make a story or anything, I just wanted to help Lena when I saw her hurt! I already wanted to delete all the compromising footage of her, I promise!”

Her pleading was desperate. Mercy looked at the reporter with scrutiny, but couldn’t seem to find any dishonesty. A few moments passed before the doctor finally smiled and shook her head.

“I’m sorry Emily, I got the wrong impression. You seem like a nice girl.”

CA1 showed a video of fireworks in celebration of not being destroyed. Emily was too relieved to react while Mercy seemed mildly amused.

“Now, where is Lena? We shouldn’t let her wait for medical attention any longer.”

“S-She’s in the… the bedroom.”

Mercy raised an eyebrow again, but she didn’t lose any more time. Emily followed closely behind her. The redhead watched Mercy approach the side of the bed as she entered the bedroom, pulling a cushion from her patients face.

“She’s out cold… with a cushion on her face?”

“Wow… she really did scream herself into unconsciousness, didn’t she?”

The blonde doctor gave her a puzzled look.

“Lena screamed? Was she in pain?”

Mercy rarely saw someone develop a blush as fast as the redheaded reporter did right now. Emily avoided eye contact and started to nervously rub the back of her head.

_This’ll be awkward._

“Well….”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _¡Jolín! ~ Curses!_   
>  _Dios mio ~ My god_   
>  _Quelle gueule?! Qui a osé écrire ça?! ~ What the fuck?! Who dared to write this?!_   
> 
> 
> * * *
> 
> Hi there, dear reader!  
> This chapter is supposed to give you a better idea of what kind of story this'll be.  
> If you feel like it, please tell me what you think about the way it's going. Not everything's set in stone yet and I'd love to know what resonates and what doesn't~  
> Either way, thanks for reading <3


	3. Darkest before Dawn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Emily tries to survive her encounter with her boss, Lena wakes up to a medical examination and Widowmaker hasn't beaten up enough security yet.

Emily got her phone out as she left Lena’s apartment. The sun hadn’t come up yet.

“Bwrauwr…”

“I know I’m looking sleepy, it’s not like I have a choice.”

A sigh left the redheads lips as she unlocked the screen. It was 3:55 am, a dreadful time to go to work. But that was the reality of newspaper journalism when the new edition came out mere hours later.

There was a new message. A smirk stole its way onto her lips as she read through it.

 _Sica_ : “Didn’t u wanna finish chapter 8 yesterday? Whats uuup Miji I need mah fix! ლ(´ڡ`ლ)”

_Always so impatient. I guess it’s flattering?_

Sica was a fellow Widowtracer author. The two of them started out commenting on each other’s stories a few years ago and before too long they found themselves chatting about all kinds of things. Now ‘Miju’ was the most popular author in the genre while ‘Sica’ was on the third spot.

Emily started to tap away at her phone.

 _Miju:_ “Something came up.”

_Woah, Sica’s typing now. Does she ever sleep?_

_Sica:_ “Yeah saw the riots! I hope u are okay? I won’t forgive u if something happens before u finish ‘Unlikely Lovers’!”

_So selfish!_

_Miju:_ “I’m fine, just a bit tired.”

 _Sica:_ “What didya do?”

 _Miju:_ “I took Lena home. Yes, the one you’re thinking about.”

Emily had a big grin on her face and almost managed to hit a lamppost, if it weren’t for CA1 beeping at her.

 _Sica:_ “No way! Ure joking right?”

 _Miju:_ “It’s true! Her leg was hurting; I couldn’t just leave her there.”

 _Sica:_ “Wow! Did you two…?! ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)”

_Of course, that’s the first thing she thinks about. Not very surprising with all her stories being lovey-dovey and smut._

_Miju: “_ Almost, I think... Don’t tell anyone, okay? I don’t want her to get into trouble or anything.”

 _Sica: “_ Almost?!?!?! What’s that supposed to mean?! Come on u know u can trust me bb”

Emily wondered about that. She always felt stupid talking to Sica, in a funny way.

 _Miju: “_ She pulled me into bed, but I kinda landed on the leg that was hurting, so…”

 _Sica:_ “U bailed?! (눈_눈)”

Emily flinched.

_I am that easy to figure out, huh._

_Miju: “_ I bailed.”

 _Sica:_ “Woooow… U missed out big time Miji! ᕙ(⇀‸↼‶)ᕗ”

 _Miju:_ “Maybe I’ll get a second chance… she said she’ll invite me for cocoa some time.”

 _Sica:_ “Awesome! U go get her girl! (☞ﾟヮﾟ)☞”

 _Miju:_ “Yeah, go me!”

 _Sica:_ “Lol, u know what? U actually almost killed Widowtracer today.”

 _Miju: “_ Huh, that would be|

She didn’t finish the sentence. A cursor still blinked at the end of the unsent message.

_Killing Widowtracer, huh?_

The thought hadn’t occurred to Emily before. It felt incredibly heavy. Writing stories about those two had been practically all of her passion. She delighted in thinking about ways they would come together, how they would fulfill each other.

These thoughts were with Emily for years. She stopped for a moment to avoid tripping because of the sudden dizziness that was washing over her.

_It’s only stories... why is that bothering me so much?_

Emily was irritated at herself, probably because she never realized just how much she valued spending her time on this hobby.

 _Miju: “_ Don’t be stupid. Even if there was something between us, I’m just a nobody no one has to know about.”

Emily shook her head and continued on her way.

 _Sica: “_ Oh ppl would definitely find out…”

 _Miju: “_ So what? Somebody else will eventually do her! Tracer is cute and awesome and totally deserves a loving girlfriend. Let’s face it; Widowtracer has about the same chance of happening as me becoming the queen of England.”

Emily felt weird typing that, as if she was betraying everything she stood for.

 _Sica: “_ YOU DIDN’T JUST WRITE THAT!”

 _Miju: “_ Yes I did.”

 _Sica: “_ UR NOT MY FRIEND ANYMORE!”

 _Miju: “_ Yes I am.”

 _Sica: “_ … okay u are but don’t say stuff like that again! o(╥﹏╥)o”

 _Miju: “_ Just because you ask so nicely. :)  Look, I’m almost at work. Let’s talk later.”

 _Sica:_ “Don’t forget chapter 8! I’m starviiing…”

Emily shook her head and put the phone away.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Slowly her eyes blinked themselves open. Lena stared at the ceiling of her bedroom. It was still dark, apart from the night lamp on a stand beside her bed. Her throat felt incredibly sore, her head was about to burst and she didn’t quite remember why right now.

“Finally awake, are we?”

“Sure am.”

Her words came out a bit slurred, but it would do. She recognized Angela’s voice and could somewhat piece together what happened yesterday.

“Gosh, my throat…”

Her words came out as a croak more than anything else. Lena looked to the side where Angela sat in a white polo shirt and jeans. The doctor was reading a health magazine with one hand and handed her a glass of water with the other.

“You apparently screamed until you lost consciousness. That’s a first, even for you.”

Lena took the glass and quickly gulped down the liquid. She could taste an aspirin in the water.

“I suppose I did, heh… thanks for the medication, I don’t deserve you Angie.”

Angela smiled slyly down into her magazine.

“You don’t. You're just lucky that I do not decline patients as a policy.”

Lena acted as if an arrow had been shot through her chest.

“Ack! So cold!”

The doctor shook her head with mild bemusement and closed the magazine.

“Maybe you could have someone warmer here. For example if you wouldn’t try to pull cute girls into your bed on the first date.”

“S-She told you?!”

“Of course. She had to explain why you went out cold screaming into a cushion. Actually, she said something about accidentally falling on you. I take it my version is closer to the truth, judging from your reaction.”

Lena went red as a beet from embarrassment.

_She’s even tried to lie for me! So nice!_

“I-I couldn’t help myself! I was like, totally delirious and stuff and…”

“…she was kinda your type, I get it.”

_No use lying, Angie knows me too well._

“…y-yeah.”

“So, now that you are finally awake, tell me where it hurts please.”

The doctor stood up and sat herself down next to Lena on the bed. She took the blanket away and began feeling the leg that Lena had fallen on. She went up and down and Lena flinched at a certain point.

“There!”

Angela took a few more moments to feel around until she finished her examination and turned around to fish for something in her tool bag.

“You’re lucky that you found a nice girl to bring you home. If you would have forced your way alone, you’d be bedridden for weeks. This doesn’t look too concerning. Your leg needs a few days of rest. You can walk around in a splint, but only walk. No running, you hear me?”

While talking, Angela put on the mentioned splint with routine motions.

“Whatever you say, Mum~”

The doctor made it a bit tighter than it needed to after that quip, prompting a yelp from Lena.

“So mean!”

“Listen.”

Lena blinked a few times. Angela’s tone of voice indicated seriousness.

“That Emily girl of yours is either a saint, or went out of her way to help you because she likes you a lot. She also seemed more concerned about you than troubled about what you did.”

The blush returned to Lena’s cheeks as she intently listened to her friend. She shivered a bit with relief.

_So, I didn’t ruin it entirely._

“Still Lena, do beware. She is a journalist working for the Evening Standard. Worst case she’ll try to make a story out of you.”

“She wouldn’t do that!”

The words had left her mouth before Lena really thought about that, but then she kind of wandered with her eyes, thinking.

“But she really didn’t tell me, huh?”

“Either she has an ulterior motive, or she didn’t want to draw your ire. I guess agents and journalists are bound to be skeptical of one another.”

The little Brit listened to the words and could somewhat make sense of that. She tried to think, looking out of the window.

“I wouldn’t have minded though. She could’ve been a darn Talon agent and I’d still think of her as awesome.”

Angela watched her patient for a while, finally shaking her head with a light chuckle. Then she slowly stood up from the bed and packed her things.

“I’ll have to catch some sleep before an operation at noon, so I’ll leave you to it. Remember, don’t overdo it, or I’ll make sure you’re tied to the bed after my next visit.”

“Uuuh, you’re into that stuff? I guess that’s a Swiss lady for you!”

The doctor rolled her blue eyes.

“There’s a note on the nightstand.”

With that, Angela left, closing the bedroom door behind her. Lena heard the front door closing, too, as she curiously turned to see this note.

Emily’s London address was written on it.

_Even her handwriting is sweet!_

Beside the address was a goofy illustration of a fat, sleeping rabbit who had little “Z”’s floating above his head. She read the message underneath out loud with bubbling excitement.

“Looking forward to the cocoa.”

Lena squealed and rolled around her bed in a fit of cuteness overload.

 

 

* * *

 

 

The redhead had just come through the door with CA1 floating closely behind. There was a little office kitchen off to the side of the entrance. She came across a small lady with the habit to lisp and a coffee can in hand.

“Good morning Mish Emily.”

“Good morning Martha. It’s nice to see that nothing has happened to you!”

Martha was in that age range where her body began to wrinkle and shrink. While the many decorations in the offices of the Evening Standard were imitations, Martha was the real deal. She had worked for the newspaper since way before the Bernstein family acquired the property.

“Oh, those hooligansh would have to try a lot harder!”

Emily was honestly surprised.

“Did rioters actually come in here?”

A male voice answered the question.

“You should’ve seen it Emi! Good old Martha was bashing a guy over the head with her purse over and over when I came in, heh.”

Anderson stopped by on his way to the kitchen, probably to make his own coffee. He was a bit smaller than Bernstein, but otherwise had a ‘Mister Fantastic’ face with lofty black hair and a 3-day beard. He was wearing a suit without the tie and tended to have the two topmost buttons on his shirts unbuttoned.

_Anderson’s sleepy, like always. Ah well, not like I’m complaining. I got the Mondatta story because Mr. Sleepy lost his flight._

Martha nodded with grim pride.

“I showed that one! He’s gonna tell his friends to shtay away, he is.”

Then she addressed Emily directly. Anderson just stood there, yawning uselessly.

“Oh, before I forget. I’m so forgetful these days, golly… Mishter Bernshtein wants a detailed report, the camera footage and you in his office in 20 minutes.”

“That fast?”

Martha acted like she didn't hear that. Or maybe she actually didn't. Either way, the old lady had said all she wanted and wandered off. Anderson playfully punched her on the shoulder.

“Geez, I’m relieved that you covered the Mondatta story instead of me. That'll be a lot of work! Good luck Emi~”

Emily sighed.

“I guess I have my work cut out for me… but first: Coffee.”

“Hear hear.”

Anderson’s yawning finally proofed to be contagious, as they both did so in unison. Together they walked into the kitchen like a pair of coffee-starved zombies.

 

 

* * *

 

 

It was an exhausting morning for peacekeeping. The riots had ended an hour into the night, so the streets below were pretty calm all things considered. Bob saw smoke rising from all other parts of London in the distance.

“ _Delta, got some punks with Molotov’s on three o’clock_.”

“ _Roger_.”

His com link flared up occasionally with colleagues in a mile vicinity.

_Something like this always happens days before retirement, doesn’t it? Such a cliché._

Luckily, Bob had a calm part of town under his watch. It was so quiet that only he and Ted were stationed around here. He liked to think that the police chief was considerate with good old Bob.

There was only this one time where some lost punk had entered the newspaper offices on the other side of the street. It hadn’t taken long before the guy was hounded down the street by a small grandma armed with a purse. He could still hear how the old hag screamed after the poor sod.

_AND YOU TELL YOUR FRIENDS TO SHTAY AWAY!_

That had been about the most exciting part of the last few hours. He liked to think back to that highlight every once in a while, chuckling heartily to himself.

Yawning, the old patroller opened a com link for a closer vicinity.

“Hey Ted, wanna go to Dublin Donuts when the shift's done?”

Bob waited a while, but didn’t receive an answer. He looked over across a few houses where his colleague was supposed to stand watch.

_Did that bastard take a nap or what?_

A clunky sound echoed before him, as if metal had hit solid concrete.

Suddenly a tall lady in a bodysuit jumped on top of the roof right in front of him. The old patroller panicked, fidgeting with his com link and was put down before he could set off an alarm.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Bernstein’s office could be described in one word.

_Neat._

Everything was where it was supposed to be and polished to the highest degree, just like its main inhabitant. Bernstein was sitting at his mahogany desk with folded hands, clearly waiting for her. Emily nervously closed the door behind herself.

“Good morning Mister Bernstein!”

“Good morning Miss Emily. You look dreadful.”

_Always the charmer._

“The report?”

She quickly made her way over and presented a few sheets of paper to him. She had hacked away at the keyboard to finish the report in time. It was written without great care for sentencing, just to get the details across. Bernstein liked it that way.

He scanned the sheets for half a minute, then looked towards Emily with his usual stern demeanor.

“The camera footage of Cassy has been retroactively cut off at precisely 21:23:41 pm. Why is that?”

Bernstein activated an on demand holo-screen behind himself. It showed the last moments of the Talon aircraft leaving the scene, presumably the moment of the cutoff. Emily nervously alternated between looking at it and Bernstein.

_He doesn’t waste any time._

“Nothing newsworthy happened after that. I actually helped a girl home that got injured and didn’t want to intrude in her privacy.”

Emily had tinkered for hours on this answer.

_No lies. He knows when I’m lying._

Even still, Emily gave him an incredibly nervous smile that would be the death of her. Bernstein examined her for agonizingly long moments before he continued.

“Do you mean this woman?”

Another holo-screen activated to the other side of her boss. It showed satellite footage of a redheaded reporter, helping a girl with orange spandex pants and a pilot’s jacket.

_Crap._

“Y-Yes, that’s her.”

“Do you consider this person not newsworthy?”

There was another moment of agonizing silence. Emily lowered her head, defeated. She didn’t know how to answer that, so Bernstein continued.

“I don’t appreciate being led up the garden path, Miss Emily.”

“I’m sorry, sir.”

“You can go home for today.”

Emily looked up again, thoroughly baffled.

“B-But the story...”

“You proved yourself too biased to work on this incident with the necessary objectivity.”

“Biased, sir?”

Bernstein didn’t answer. He just looked at her with firm disappointment. Emily took the hint and lowered her gaze again.

_He’s probably linking me deleting the footage with the draft of chapter 8 he saw yesterday._

“Who… who will write the story? “

“Your report will go to Anderson.”

Emily felt horrible and devoid of willpower. This had been her chance to show her superior that she was still serious about this job. Especially after the debacle of yesterday. But that plan had gone to flames because Emily wanted to protect Lena’s privacy.

_It’s so unfair..._

She wanted to cry, but tried desperately to avoid humiliating herself further. Emily's eyes were already glistening with tears despite her efforts to keep it in.

“You are neither fired nor demoted. Get some rest and come back in tomorrow. I’ll have a new assignment for you then.”

Bernstein sounded like he, too, wanted to avoid her having a breakdown in his office.

_How considerate._

Emily swallowed her bitterness and forced her own words out with as much professionalism as she could muster.

“Thank you, Mister Bernstein.”

Then she stood up and left the office. Once outside, Emily did her best to soldier on straight through to the exit. Her colleagues thankfully held respectful distances.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Nathaniel took off his horned glasses to rub his eyes.

“It’s not like I enjoy doing this.”

He was talking to himself. Nathaniel knew that this was not an entirely healthy habit, but he came to terms with it. He just needed to reassure himself out loud sometimes. That’s also why his office was laid out to be sound-proof. He could do without his employees thinking of him as having a few screws loose.

“If only she would just own up to her decisions. I can’t stand dishonesty.”

He sighed and slowly stood up. With a steady pace, Nathaniel Bernstein left his office. His secretary Martha was right outside. There was a sad look on her face.

“You didn’t have to make her cry, Nathan boy.”

“Spare me, Martha. Everything will be back to normal tomorrow.”

He put up with being called ‘boy’ since he inherited the position from his father. Martha had been working for the newspaper since way before his family had anything to do with it, so she possessed the privilege of experience in his eyes. It also helped that she was an excellent secretary despite her age.

Nathaniel went on and approached Anderson’s office. He knocked twice on the door and heard some sudden shuffling on the other side in response.

_Napping, as usual?_

A brightly smiling Anderson greeted him on the other side of the door. The imprint of a pencil was temporarily stuck to his cheek.

_As usual._

“What’s up Nathaniel?”

“Mister Bernstein.”

“Oh yeah, Mister Bernstein, sorry. “

Nathaniel almost regretted sending Emily home. At least she never disrespected him like this.

“I have a job for you. The Mondatta assassination and the riots of last night. The camera footage is already in the database.”

Nathaniel put Emily’s report on Anderson’s desk, who was staring at the sheets with a puzzled look.

“Wasn’t Emi supposed to write that story?”

“She was. Now you are.”

“What happened?”

“That does not need concern you. Make sure to have a draft ready by half past six.”

Anderson slowly nodded at that, looking at Nathaniel like he had just killed a puppy. With a nod in return and the usual ‘I’m counting on you’, the editor-in-chief returned to his own office.

 

 

* * *

 

 

After closing the door, Nathaniel breathed through deeply.

“They look at me as If I have committed high treason. Ridiculous.”

Nathaniel wanted to move to his desk, but after just one step something hit him on the side of the head with force. His vision blacked out for a second. Way out of balance and unable to hold onto anything, Nathaniel fell to the ground.

A sultry, female voice broke through the ringing in his ears.

“I don’t know what you have done, _monsieur_ , but let’s just consider this repentance.”

His thoughts were in shambles. Nathaniel wasn’t good at processing things that weren’t a reasonable possibility before. He felt a head-splitting headache approaching. A high heeled stiletto painfully pushed down on his shoulder until he was lying on his back. Then he saw a gun barrel pointing towards his forehead.

“The Widowmaker? I am honored.”

If Nathaniel was good at something, it was keeping his composure.

_Maybe that’ll be the death of me._

“You should. I don’t point Widow’s Kiss at just anybody.”

Nathaniel straightened his tie while lying down.

_Might as well do it with some dignity._

“What have I done to deserve this visit?”

“There is one employee under your care called Emily. She has drawn my attention.”

_It’s good that I sent her home after all then._

“I guess because she helped that Tracer character?”

Widowmaker didn’t answer immediately. It seemed to him that she wasn’t quite aware of that fact.

“None of your concern.”

“Miss Emily has left for the day either way. I am sorry to disappoint.”

“It would surely be a trivial matter for you to tell me where she has gone, yes?”

“Impossible.”

Widowmaker raised an eyebrow at that answer.

“Such insolence.”

“My apologies.”

“I suppose you are bound by duty to protect your employees or some such?

“Just so.”

“ _Absurdité._ ”

“ _Au contraire.”_

Widowmaker rolled her amber eyes and put Widow’s Kiss back on her shoulder. Then she kicked him across the face with her steel-capped stiletto. Nathaniel grimaced from the pain and breathed harder. His nose was bleeding now.

“Don’t go cute on me. I suppose I should just ask her colleagues instead. They might be more susceptible to pain.”

_It has come to this. I am sorry, Miss Emily._

“No need, I will talk.”

“There we go. Was that so hard now?”

Nathaniel didn’t dignify that with an answer.

“How does she look like and where does she live? Don’t think up anything funny. If I don’t find her off this, I’ll be far less tolerable on my next visit.”

“There’ll be security by then.”

“Ask Mondatta what he thinks about London security.”

“…touché.”

“Now talk, before I lose my patience.”

As Nathaniel was an honest man, he talked truthfully. His guest thanked him by ramming the butt of her rifle into his face.

_“Merci et bonne nuit.”_

The world around him went dark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Absurdité ~ Nonsense_   
>  _Au contraire ~ On the contrary_   
>  _Merci et bonne nuit ~ Thanks and good night_


	4. A long night, a kiss goodbye

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's a long way home today for Emily, Lena struggles to keep herself contained and Widowmaker trails them both, stalking for a kill.

Light-brown eyes were glistening with tears. Emily sniffled while trying to get rid of them with her hand. The cool, autumn air this night made things a little easier. She breathed through deeply.

Emily sought to distract herself by looking at her phone, but nothing had come up. A few messages for Sica still lingered on the screen. They were sent with a small glint of hope.

_Last online 4:28 am… Maybe this is when Sica sleeps?_

Something else would have to distract her from what just happened in Bernstein’s office. By habit, Emily looked at the news and immediately regretted doing so, as that only served to remind her of work.

_I failed at my job. My boss threw me out..._

A fit of nausea got hold of her. Emily quickly tucked her phone away again and shivered all over.

_I’ll get another chance. Calm down already!_

It felt as if depression and sanity were warring against each other in her mind, causing one nasty headache. Emily wasn’t certain yet who’d win, and she wasn’t sure she cared.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Her mood was surprisingly good. Emily’s little manager had been amusing to parlay with. Since it was no fun for her to kill that which had already come to terms with being assassinated, she had spared him, too. Widow was quite animalistic in that sense.

There was a certain longing for another target after skipping on the last one. A brisk pace made it easy to catch up to her prey. The redheaded reporter was walking down in the streets below her. Two more blocks and she would’ve reached home.

_C'est dommage._

Widow moved to a good spot. She could just take aim and end it here. Make an example. A trivial exercise.

_Eh._

But she wasn’t feeling it.

_I’ll confront her first. Maybe she’ll be as amusing as her superior, yes?_

There was a renewed, devious smile on Widow’s lips. She resisted her thirst for the kill and continued to stalk her prey.

_She’ll die whenever I want._

 

 

* * *

 

 

There was a bad feeling at the back of her mind, as if something horrible was about to happen. She couldn’t shake it, no matter how hard she tried. A shiver ran through her body as she tried to suppress the emotion.

Emily instead tried to focus on how she felt about soon being home instead. As journalist, she was used to stay up this long depending on the day of the week, so she wasn’t really at the point of collapse. Still, she longed for the sweet release of her bed, just to call it quits for today.

_Just be done with everything…_

Tears were still persistent now and then, but she had herself under control, swiping them away as they came. Even a small smile stole its way onto her lips as she thought about sleeping.

_It’s the simple things in life, right?_

Emily took a left turn around a corner into Wellington Street. Just as she did, a fire truck came her way without any fanfare. It soon disappeared into the night. Emily trailed it with her gaze.

“Huh.”

_Was there a fire here during the riots?_

She turned back to face the street and stared at the smoldering, lifeless husks of a row of flats, including her own. Smoke was still rising from the ruins of the inferno that had burned her own little sanctuary to the ground. Most of what she had owned was gone, lost to her in an instant.

Emily stood there under absolute shock.

 

 

* * *

 

 

_I guess her house is gone. She’s not taking it too well._

Widow was mildly annoyed. Her target would be useless in this condition. Any bullet to the head would almost seem like a mercy killing and Widow didn’t deal in mercy.

_Just my luck._

The assassin was rapidly beginning to lose interest.

_This won’t do._

She readied to pack her things and forget about this little vendetta of hers.

Then she heard something that reinvigorated her killing intent.

_“Ouh la la, you must really like me.~”_

It was her own voice.

As a fucking ringtone.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Emily fidgeted with her phone as tears endlessly streamed down her cheeks. She couldn’t keep up with swiping them away.

_“One shot, one ki-“_

_Click._

“H-Hello?”

She had stumbled back into the metal fence of one of her neighbor’s yards on the opposite side of the street of her former home. Emily tried to keep any resemblance of composure, but that was an impossible task.

“Oi, it’s me, Lena! I know you’re probably at work right now, uh…”

Emily wanted to keep it in, but hearing Lena’s voice made it somehow harder to calm down. It was as if her conscience wanted to cry for help. She sobbed into the phone more than she talked.

“L-Lena… I’m sorry… m-my h-home… it’s g-gone…”

“Wait there!”

Then Lena hung up.

Emily just stood there, all alone. The phone fell out of her hand as she lowered her arm. Her body was a useless mess, shivering and barely holding itself upright. Her mind was still blank form shock and she seemed to be stuck in time, unable to muster the will to move.

She couldn’t judge how long it took, but something pulled her away from the fence at one point. Emily blinked a few times with her tear-filled eyes and suddenly felt herself being tightly embraced. The smell was unmistakable.

_Lena_

Emily buried her head against the shoulder right before her and started to let it all out.

“You’re not hurt, right? That’s good! I’m so relieved!”

Wailing cries were slightly dampened by a pilot’s jacket. All the while Lena straddled her back.

“Hey, hey…”

Every so often, she would whisper words into Emily’s ear that she probably thought of as ‘encouraging’.

“It’s okay! Who needs a home anyway, am I right?”

Emily cried a lot louder at that.

“Uh, yeah you’re right, homes are nice. But come on, it’s not all that bad, is it? Let’s smile, okay? You look a lot cuter when you’re smiling, do you know that luv?”

Time went on and on as they stood there together, one of them holding and the other clinging. Emily slowly exhausted herself. Maybe she even cracked a little under Lena’s stupid comments as every so often some giggles mixed themselves with exhausted sobs.

“You know what? I get _really wet_ when I’m standing here with you… On the shoulder, you see?”

“S-Stop it…”

“Nu-uh, can’t stop won’t stop!”

_Is she quoting Lucio from Auditiva? Is nothing sacred anymore?_

“Come on, smile a bit, luv!”

Emily finally gave in and slowly retracted her head from the shoulder with another mixture of sobbing and giggling, looking at Lena.

_She looks so happy._

That happiness rubbed off on her. It was contagious, kind of like Emily always found herself yawning when she was around sleepy Anderson. A shaky smile stole its way onto her lips.

Lena seemed as if she was incredibly proud.

_For herself? For me? Both?_

“I’ll try but… i-it’s not easy. My home…”

The thought made her look away and nibble on her lower lip with distress. A hand on her cheek guided those light-brown eyes back up.

“Forget this!”

“How…?”

“You can stay with me for a while.”

The redhead blinked a few times, as if she had misheard.

“I could…? But… wouldn’t that be-“

Lena pressed a finger to her lips to stop any further objections.

“No but’s! I always wanted to have a roommate and you seem to be in need of a shelter, luv. Plus, I owe you big time for yesterday! Angie said I’d be bedridden if you wouldn’t have brought me home. Now smile for me, will ya?”

As if her eyes being all red from all the crying wasn’t enough, her cheeks decided to join them. There was an exhausted smile on Emily’s lips now. She nodded slowly, still silenced by Lena’s finger.

“There we go, that’s a good girl!”

Lena grinned at her cheerily with a wink.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Widow had watched everything. How Tracer hurried with a hobble to get to this little reporter, how they embraced each other, laughed with one another.

_Enough of this! Any more and I will puke._

Mild curiosity had made her wait up until now, but enough was enough. Even though her pulse was low, she could feel her blood boil. Widow was at the end of her patience with this display of sickening sweetness.

The assassin applied pressure to the trigger amounting to 5lb. The bullet exited the chamber with a resounding bang. A target would have to stand at 3200 yards distance to have a chance at hearing the noise of the shot before the impact, not counting the time it would take the brain to process. Her targets never hear it coming. Widow coldly observed in slow motion as her 7.62x51mm caliber projectile pierced through the air, hitting its intended target at 777 miles per second velocity at the temple. The force of the impact was strong enough to throw the head around to a neck breaking degree, while the bullet exited the skull through the frontal lobe on the other side. Even without the obvious brain hemorrhage, the force of impact would have a similarly terminal outcome. Warm blood splatters covered the walkway, the victim’s clothes and the face of the one she had embraced. The victim’s body entered a state of primary flaccidity: Pupils dilate, the jaw falls and muscles relax. Only her companion kept her upright at this point. Within minutes of the heart stopping, her skin will turn pale and her body begins to cool down from 37° Celsius until reaching the ambient temperature.

Widow blinked.

Currently Widow applied 4lb of pressure to the trigger of Widow’s Kiss. The shot of course never happened. In her mind, she was predicting what havoc one bullet would wreak. Widow knew her work and liked to play it safe.

_This is as done a deal as it gets. Why do I hesitate?_

The assassin tried to think why she would stop herself like this. She couldn’t shake the feeling that this wasn’t the right time to finish her prey.

A thought came to her from the depths of her subconsciousness.

_It isn’t that story, is it?_

She remembered reading how Tracer went completely insane in that ‘fanfiction’ that Sombra had shown her. After failing to save Mondatta, the hero lost every ounce of morality in her body, working with criminals to take Widowmaker down for good. And after she had taken down Widowmaker…

_Don’t be ridiculous, that’s just a story!_

The pressure on the trigger was held at 4,5lb. But her thoughts lingered on that theory.

She further remembered the actual panic on Tracer’s face after Widow had finished Mondatta. In the story that Sombra had shown her, right after that moment, Tracer would lose it.

_But that didn’t happen outside of the story._

Widow knew from this Bernstein character that the redheaded reporter, the one Widow saw on the roof top that night, might be the cause of this disconnect between the tales.

_Did she keep Tracer sane? Maybe. So, what if I take her away now?_

The two of them down there began to giggle with one another about some joke while Widow continued to wreck her mind about implications. She imagined the horrified look on Tracer’s face if Widow only applied a little more pressure right now, letting that cute little head down there go ‘pop’.

A smirk stole its way on Widow’s lips. It sounded fun to her at first, to take something away this annoying girl clearly adored.

On the other hand, she could see Tracer completely snap in the span of seconds after that, her gaze going wild and crazed, laughing amidst blood and death, looking around aimless and dazed, the feeling of loss taking her breath, everything turning upside down as madness beckons.

Something in her grew uncertain.

_Maybe that's what I should be averting_

Her mind, in shambles, began to rhyme,

since everything felt very much off this time.

Her finger went away from trigger, clouded with worry.

She felt as if back in ballet, being an actor in an unreal story.

_I absolutely don’t have time to deal with an even crazier fool!_

That’s how she rationalized, watching Tracer already acting a tool.

 _Ce n'est pas grave_ , she tried to console herself, _there’s no need to rush._

It was lucky for everyone involved that nobody would point out her blush.

Widow instead continued to observe, trying her best not to actually puke at the two of them being so cute that she couldn’t compute.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 _“¡Maldita sea!_ What is she doing?!”

Sombra had made herself comfortable with a blanket and some chips. She also had a fluffy bunny with shrill, violet extensions to cuddle with. Barely anybody knew about her little pet that was munching on a carrot right now and she liked to keep it that way. She didn't trust Widow's sadism to stop at cute animals.

Her rig was showing the scene of Emily and Tracer from all kinds of different angles, not quite voluntarily sponsored by London security cameras.

“Is she thinking up a poem or something? Come ooon! Deal with her already!”

The little hacker was visibly frustrated at the scene. Mainly because she could see Widow in one of the camera corners not doing anything.

“Has she seriously developed a soft side? Gha! Of course, it couldn’t just go over smoothly!"

Sombra grumbled to herself, munched on another chip and then drifted down in her seat while cuddling with her funky bunny.

 _„Hora de empezar de Nuevo_.“

The cameras vanished one by one and made way for an array of pictures that were connected to each other. It looked like something out of a police detectives department, where officers would try to find out how murder cases could be connected to people and evidence. At the center of this particular assortment was a redheaded reporter.

“We’ll have to move on to plan B then. Don’t we, _Senor Fluffles_?”

Sombra began to cackle deviously, stroking her little bunny while Senor Fluffles seemed more interested in the carrot he was munching on.

 

 

* * *

 

 

“Mercy told you not to run…”

“I know…”

Emily was supporting Lena at the side, like she had done yesterday. The only difference was that both of them were much more aware of the way their bodies pressed up against each other.

_Déjà vu._

“But you still did?”

“I had to come and rescue you!”

There Lena made her blush again. Emily was a bit embarrassed to be the figurative damsel in distress.

“It wasn’t like I was in danger or anything…”

“You sure sounded like you needed someone to save you.”

“I did? Well… ugh… Still, you shouldn’t have to hurt yourself like that!”

“But I do! That’s what a hero does.”

A small sigh was the answer. Lena innocently smiled brightly at her from the side.

_I can’t be mad at her. She’s too good for this world._

Emily whispered in return and looked down to the walkway as she did.

“I’m glad that you came.”

They were quiet for a while, walking down the streets of London in the early hours of an autumn dawn. It wasn’t bright enough yet for the streetlights to turn off, but the far horizon already shone in light blue colors.

“Emily?”

“Hmm?”

Both of them looked ahead, only occasionally catching a glimpse of one another in the corners of their eyes.

“Err, maybe… that’s a bit sudden right now.”

“What is?”

Emily was curious and looked over. She saw how Lena was strictly looking ahead, as if to gather her courage and/or thoughts.

“Well… I kinda have to tell you something.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, it’s… pretty important, you know?”

“You’re good at causing suspense.”

Lena was getting a bit flustered at the cheeks and started to chew at her lower lip while she was thinking about how to say what she wanted to say.

_She’s so cute sometimes._

“Do you know…”

The little Brit looked over to her in a serious manner, something entirely uncharacteristic for her.

“Do you know that I’m Tracer?”

They both looked at each other for a moment. Emily blinked a few times and then tried to play the most convincing surprise she could muster.

“Oh. _You_ are Tracer? The Tracer?”

“Yes! I am!”

“Wow!”

Emily desperately hoped that Cassy was filming. She wanted to have Lena’s naïve expression as screensaver, if at all possible.

“So, you didn’t notice!”

“I totally should’ve from your yellow spandex pants and pilot’s jacket. Those are pretty telling.”

“Yeah, they kind of give it away norm-”

Lena looked at her and squinted a bit, slowly getting behind the most devious deception.

“…waaait, you knew!”

“What, me?”

Emily tried to suppress the goofy smile on her lips, but failed miserably. She almost regretted teasing Lena about it, but that grumpy pout made it all worth it. Now she _really_ hoped Cassy got that one.

“Yes, you!”

“Oh, I suppose I did.”

Lena looked like she had trouble understanding.

“Why did you act so normal then?”

The sun had appeared at the far end of the horizon and the streetlights were turning off one by one. Emily thought for a moment about her motive and how to best convey it.

“You looked vulnerable. Lena didn’t want Tracer to be seen that way, I think. And I wanted to be nice to Lena.”

They were silent for a while. Birds began to chirp in the distance as the morning grew ever closer.

“Yeah… that’s an interesting way to put it, but you’re right.”

“It’s strange to think about, isn’t it? But I can relate. We all have different masks we put on sometimes.”

“You’re really good at putting things in interesting ways! Masks, huh?”

“Yeah. Like… you wear one to work, one around family, one around friends and another one online.”

Lena looked at her curiously from the side.

“Do you have one on right now?”

“I don’t think so.”

That was a lie. The reporter tried to turn attention away from that by returning the question.

“You?”

“Me? Huh, I’m… probably wearing the ‘Lena’-mask.”

Emily was mildly surprised. Her friend really doesn’t lie at all, or hold things in. There was a sudden surge of curiosity as an author of fanfiction.

“Is it hard to distinguish who’s the real you?”

Lena thought about that for a moment as they wandered along the sunset.

“It kind of… blurs at the lines, you know? It’s both me, Tracer and Lena. I just want people to treat me differently depending on who I want to be right now.”

“I know what you mean.”

A small chuckle came from Emily, which made Lena turn her way with a puzzled look.

_I wrote a story about that at one point, didn’t I? Kinda feels like cheating to know how she thinks._

“What’s so funny?”

_Crap, gotta be subtler._

“Ah, I just thought of a joke.”

“A joke?”

“Two skeletons walk into a bar. One falls over, both are dead.”

It took Lena a few moments to figure that one out.

 

 

* * *

 

 

“It’s okay, I’m feelin’ better!”

“Are you sure your foot is okay?”

“Sure as eggs is eggs! I’ll go make us something, you can get comfy on the couch if you want.”

Lena closed the front door behind them and observed her new roommate while they talked.

_I hope she’s okay now. She sure looks giddy! Gosh, I hope I don’t fuck this up…_

“Lena?”

“Yes luv?”

“Could I, erm… borrow some of your clothes? I had these on since yesterday morning.”

A blush crept up on Lena. She staved off the impure thoughts coming her way.

“Yeah, sure, no biggie! Just look in the bedroom closet.”

“Thanks a lot!”

While Emily made her way to the bedroom, Lena took off and hanged her pilot’s jacket. A black shirt and dark blue jeans remained after slipping out of her shoes. She had quickly put all this on over an hour ago in her quest to rescue the princess.

Her gaze was still glued to the bedroom door.

_She sure seems eager to get out of her clothes…_

Lena shook her head vehemently after imagining what her new roommate would look like naked.

_Stop it Lena! Pure thoughts only! Don’t ruin it again!_

Some less flattering memories of her past dates came to mind as Lena moved to the kitchen and started to make hot cocoa. All of them could be boiled down to one of two scenarios.

In one scenario Lena would find a cute and considerate girl. Then she would proceed to scare her away by being too quick to get all feely-touchy and emotional, just as she did with Emily yesterday.

But there was a worse scenario: Fangirls.

They would talk endlessly about how cool Tracer was and squeal like dying pigs at everything she would say, like she could do or say no wrong. The absolute worst though was the clinging! Like she was some life-sized action figure and not an actual human being.

Lena cringed just thinking about those dates.

_Thank god Emily isn’t one of those!_

 

 

* * *

 

 

_I’m gonna live with her! Ohmygodohmygodohmygod!_

Emily stood in front of Lena’s closet with her asthma inhalator in hand. She had to breathe through that thing, lest she would be hyperventilating on the floor right now. Emily was basically an emotional wreck at this point and sincerely impressed with her own fortitude up until now. Any longer and she would’ve blown her cover on the way to the apartment.

It didn’t get any better as she started to rummage through Lena’s things to find something suitable to wear. But she got a bit distracted in the meanwhile.

_Tracer wore this on her vacation in Cologne! And that’s her Halloween costume from last year!_

Emily even found herself comparing sizes to the ones she liked to imagine for her stories and squealed in joy as they turned out to match.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Some police cabbies drove by outside and since Lena had the window open, it was pretty loud.

_Huh? Could’ve sworn I heard something from the bedroom…_

Lena looked over after the cabbies were gone, but no peep came from the bedroom right now.

_Oh well, better not intrude!_

 

 

* * *

 

 

Widow was watching her target from a vantage point on another roof.

Her thoughts had finally stopped rhyming a few minutes ago. It had been the most stupid and annoying thing in a long string of irritations tonight. Surely it couldn’t get any worse.

What was happening down there however was a mystery to her, since the redheaded reporter seemed to have the time of her life rummaging through a pile of Tracer’s stacked clothes.

Widow had the feeling that she should be more impatient, but that wasn’t quite the case. Instead there was a faint curiosity in her emotionless body.

_Might as well entertain myself._

Just then Emily began to undress. Widow coughed once at the coincidence.

 

 

* * *

 

Both of them were sitting at one end of the couch. Since they were already used to being close from their tracks home, it wasn’t too awkward. That was a good thing. Lena was sure she would’ve gone crazy otherwise. Seeing Emily in her jogging trousers and a white t-shirt with a bunny motive that Hana had gifted Lena recently was straining enough.

“Be careful luv, it’s still a bit hot! Wouldn’t want you to burn your lips just yet, haha!”

Emily looked a bit surprised to her, raising an eyebrow at the odd choice of words. Then she carefully blew at her cup of hot cocoa, dispersing the steam coming from it.

_What did I mean, ‘just yet’?! Oh god, the look she gave me! Lena, don’t fuck this up again!_

“U-Uh, I mean, not like you should burn your lips at any point, that would be horrible! They look so pretty.”

The redhead looked up to her from the cocoa again and raised the other eyebrow this time, too. Lena was sweating bullets and laughing awkwardly.

_You’re so stupid Lena, you are-_

Her thoughts got shut up as Emily showed her the sweetest of shy smiles. Strands of her hair were falling around that beautifully freckled face, framing it perfectly.

“Thank you. It’s nice that you think that way.”

A cupid’s arrow hit her with full force, as she watched Emily go for the smallest of sips from her hot cup of cocoa.

_So composed! And cute!_

“Hah, haha, no problem!”

The heart in her chest was beating like crazy as she awkwardly rubbed the back of her head.

“Should we watch a bit of telly, luv?”

Lena needed to quickly calm down after that near-death encounter with a sweetness induced heart attack, so she just grabbed the remote as soon as Emily nodded her approval.

The TV switched on as Lena pressed the power button. It defaulted to Atlas News. There was an overhead video feed of a grand metropolis. Smoke was rising from different parts of the city.

_“- are still in full effect in some parts of London. The chief of police states that the riots lead by ‘omnic rights activists’ are under control. In the meanwhile, a spokesperson of the Coalition for Omnic Rights stressed that this is the work of extremists and while she can understand the grief for the late Mondatta, condemns all application of violence.”_

Lena could see Emily tense up at her side.

“Please switch the channel!”

“O-Okay.”

_“In related news, an assassination attempt was made on the editor in chief of the Ev-“_

_“-ven show up on the GPS.” “It is unworthy of global positioning.” “That’s the whole point” “Get off the grid, right?” “No cell phone reception…”_

They were looking at a scene of young adults in a van driving down a forest road. Emily blinked a few times.

“What is this? It looks ancient…”

“That’s what you get on a movie channel in the morning, ancient stuff!”

Lena clicked on the info button on her remote.

“That’s… ‘Cabin in the woods – 2011’.”

“Oh, I heard of that one! That’s a horror movie.”

Emily tensed up a bit again to Lena’s surprise.

“Is something wrong?”

“I-I get easily scared…”

_Jackpot!_

“D’aww, don’t worry, I’m here to protect you from all the scary monsters! Being a hero and all.”

That seemed to at least reassure Emily enough not to demand another channel switch. Lena dimmed the lights for ambience.

 

 

* * *

 

 

_“I don’t mean ‘never’, but…” “Hey. Nothing you don’t want.”_

The two characters in the scene began to tenderly kiss. In the meanwhile, it was painfully obvious that the killer was entering through the door. Emily was freaking out again.

“Behind you! T-Turn around!”

Predictably, the two characters did not turn around. Suspenseful horror movie music, gurgling and female screams could be heard, but Emily couldn’t see any of that. She hid her face on Lena’s shoulder and pressed her eyes shut, clinging to her ‘hero’ as soon as the knife was falling.

Lena on the other hand managed to get her arm around Emily, holding her secure. She was in heaven, smiling without a care in the world.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Near the end of the movie the whole story goes crazy, unleashing a lot of common phobia. Most of which poor Emily was obviously susceptible to. After the crazy, murderous clown, she didn’t even look up from Lena’s shoulder anymore.

At this point it was no use trying to watch the film anyway. Lena was too hot and bothered to care about the plot.

“Should I turn it off?”

“N-No, it’s okay! I’m… I’m okay!”

The answer came more as a meek squeal that reminded Lena of a frightened mouse.

“I don’t really want to watch anymore, though.”

“Huh?”

Emily was a bit confused at that, looking up from her roommate’s shoulder. Her eyes were glistening a bit from being scared so much. It was impossible to hold back anymore.

“There’s someone a lot more interesting here. You were really brave!”

A blush stole its way on Emily’s freckled cheeks. Lena couldn’t resist stroking one of them.

“Ah, it’s not… I’m just a scaredy cat.”

Emily tried to avert her gaze, but Lena guided it back upwards.

_Now or never! Finger’s crossed…_

“And what a cute cat you are!”

Lena winked at her, smiling with all the charm she could muster. It came easy to her, even though her tummy was bubbling with excitement. She came closer, so much that their foreheads almost touched.

“I like you really a lot, Emily.”

She whispered those words truthfully before finally closing the distance. In the back of Lena’s mind, she knew that Emily’s shocked expression and widely opened, beautiful light-brown eyes might be concerning, but it was far too late to worry about these things.

Their lips touched. Lena tried to be as tender as possible for their first kiss, keeping it light, only committing to small and sensual motions. The body beside her shivered as if a mild surge of electricity went through Emily’s body. A squeal was dampened by their kiss.

Slowly, Emily began to return the affection. Lena felt her hesitation and found it insanely cute. The resistance melted away with every passing moment, as they eased into each other more and more.

Lena found it hard to think at this moment. All she needed was right beside her. Her arms subconsciously pulled the girl of her affection closer.

_Not… too fast…_

These warnings were ignored by her emotionally driven body. The need for Emily was far greater. Her hand on Emily’s cheek delved downward, exploring the underside of the cute bunny t-shirt, gently stroking her pale tummy. At the same time, she tried to softly open the kiss, pressing her tongue to Emily’s lips.

_Her skin is so soft…_

Her companion tensed up somewhat, growing restless for some reason, but Lena didn’t care anymore. She tried to reach for-

_“BEEP BEEP BEEP!”_

Lena tensed up while Emily was positively startled to death. Emily tried to get free and Lena let go, watching the redhead falling over herself to get into the bedroom

_Shitshitshit! Why now?!_

Lena tried to reach for the pager in her snug jeans. She quickly read the message on it and got sober real fast. Then she looked over towards the bedroom.

_Damn… Should I even follow her? She went hiding for a reason. Fuck, I hope this is salvageable…_

Lena stood up from the couch, shutting the TV off and went over. She stopped right next to the bedroom door, not looking inside or anything, just close enough so her voice would be there with Emily.

“Uh… I’m… sorry if that was too sudden, Emily. I just… really like you, you know luv?”

There was no initial answer.

“I’ll cut it out if you don’t feel the same way, no problem.”

Again, no answer. Lena could swear she heard heavy inhaling coming from the bedroom.

_She sounds like she’s having a heart attack! Was I that bad again…?_

“Okay, I… guess we can talk later, haha. Right now, I was called to an emergency meeting, hero stuff you know?”

“Even though you’re injured…?”

_She’s still talking to me! That’s a good sign! It’s a good sign, right?_

“Well, the doctor didn’t give me any medical certificate to skip out on work, so I’ll have to! Can I leave you alone for a couple of hours?”

“Y-Yeah. Do you have… a notebook I could use?”

“Of course! It’s right next to the telly, password is cavalry one exclamation mark with a capital ‘C’.”

A small giggle came through the bedroom door, putting a smile to Lena’s face.

“I’ll be sleeping when the cavalry’s coming home, I think.”

“I-I won’t do anything funny, promise!”

Another giggle.

“I’ll hold you to that.”

“See you soon, Emily!”

The hero turned around, still a bit tensed up from everything that happened. The pilot’s jacket and shoes were quickly put back on again. She already wanted to step outside when Emily called out to her.

“Lena?”

Surprised she turned around. Emily was hiding halfway behind the frame of the bedroom door. The beginnings of a shy smile could be seen on that visible half of her lips.

_God she’s so cute! I wanna go back in…_

“Y-Yes, luv?”

“You can call me Emi. Come back in one piece, okay?”

Lena felt her chest stir. It was a heartwarming feeling, to know there would be somebody at home, waiting just for her.

_I’m so in love._

 

 

* * *

 

 

Emily made herself comfortable lying on the couch. The jogging trousers were on the floor, discarded, as the redheaded reporter tapped away on the notebook with both of her pale, naked legs crossed on the couch. Since she worked on documents in the web, it was never a problem to just go back to work on her stories.

_Should I stop here? I mean, that’s a good cliffhanger for the next one._

As she contemplated on that, Emily started to twirl her red locks with one finger. That was a silly habit, but it kind of helped her think.

It was just a good thing that writing was such an efficient distraction from all the hotness that happened earlier. Emily didn’t even know how to start figuring out how she felt about that. So not even starting to try was clearly the best idea in her mind.

_Yeah. I think this paragraph will be the last. Sica will be furious!_

Emily tapped away at a few more sentences, grinning gleefully. Then she scrolled all the way up to reread the story. She would do so a couple of times to adjust small sentences for readability or correct grammar mistakes. What her fastest readers would digest in around ten minutes took Emily generally around eight to twenty hours of planning, writing, talking to proof readers and correcting. And that all depended on how hard of a time she had envisioning the plot advancement.

_It’s worth it for the people I’m making happy with this._

That’s what she liked to think, smiling contently.

A light breeze was tingling at her bare legs.

_Didn't I close the kitchen window?_

Emily looked up. The room was only dimly lit as clouds blocked out the sun at this autumn morning. The brightest light source in the room was Lena’s notebook. She closed it to adjust her eyes to the dark. It was just in time to witness a tall lady clad in a violet body suit enter through the window, as gracefully and silent as a cat would do.

Amber eyes caught sight of her.

Widowmaker observed her prey with a mixture of amusement and pure killing intent.

In her mind, Emily had thought about this scenario many times. In half of the cases, she died immediately. 

_"Bonjour, Emily."_

The other half would have her die slightly later that day.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _¡Maldita sea! ~ Damn it!_  
>  _C'est dommage ~ What a shame_  
>  _Ce n'est pas grave ~ It does not matter_  
>  _Hora de empezar de Nuevo ~ Time to start over_  
>   
>   
>  This chapter took me quite a lot of time to compose. I hope you like it!  
> I'd appreciate your comment, dearest reader ♡


	5. A Proofread to die for

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Widow plays with her food, Emily tries not to die too quickly and Lena sees some hot action.

_“Bonjour, Emily.”_

The redhead was trying hard to keep calm. There would be no escaping to her asthma inhalator this time. Slowly, with shivering hands, she put the notebook away and looked up to the assassin at the edge of the couch.

Amber eyes looked down on her. To Emily, they were like those of a large cat that had stalked its prey for hours, finally ready to strike. Big cats were sadistic animals. They liked to play with their food, often even leaving it alive for the feasting.

Emily thought it was kind of funny that she was the definition of a prey animal, too. She was frail, certainly not able to fight back all that much and easy to scare. The only thing she had going for her was within her head.

_This’ll be a long shot._

For her to survive, she thought, Widowmaker had to be a certain way. If she was not…

_Well, I guess I had a good run._

The little reporter gathered what little courage she could muster. Once she got going, she thought, it would at least be liberating, not being able to act like this around Lena and all.

_Here goes nothing!_

 

 

* * *

 

 

Widow had imagined the frail girl to be paralyzed in fear, obviously recognizing who was staring down at her right now, but little Emily didn’t do that. She was rather visibly panicking instead.

Then Widow thought she might flee, as the girl fell over herself to stand up from the couch, but little Emily didn’t do that either. It would have been foolish anyway.

Thoroughly intrigued, Widow finally thought this girl wanted to try to talk it out. All tough like, as her boss had tried, even though little Emily was clearly lacking the necessary composure.

But nothing of the sort.

Instead, little Emily threw herself on the ground as if to worship the grand assassin.

“…what …are you doing?”

The redhead’s backside was rather unfortunately sticking out while groveling on the ground, revealing her panties: White fabric with a bunny motive.

“I am not worthy!”

Widow raised an eyebrow. Her rifle was leisurely resting on her shoulder, waiting patiently for its turn.

“ _Oui._ You are not.”

“Thank you for taking your time to visit me! I-I’ve always wanted to meet you!”

_My target thanking me? That is a first._

“Did you now?”

Emily dared to look up. Widow was taken aback by expressions of sheer joy and relief on the smaller girl’s face.

“Y-Yes! I absolutely adore your work! I mean, it’s kind of killing people, but really you create art in your own way! I have so many quest-urgh!”

This was getting too weird for Widow. One of her stilettos pressed the red head back down to the ground. The pressure was nothing too strict, just enough so she couldn’t raise it on her own.

“Calm down.”

“O-Okay.”

Widow stared at the docile girl and was positively confused. It took her some time to process.

“So, you are one of my… ‘fans’?”

“Yes! Your greatest fan, if I say so mys-urgh!”

Her stiletto pressed down again, flattening Emily’s cheek on the floor. That girl was way too eager for her own good. Widow dropped Emily’s phone down next to her head to quell that eagerness. The little reporter had forgotten that one on Wellington Street. Widow made sure to thoroughly break it beneath her boot at one point.

“That’s why you had my voice as ringtone, yes?”

The girl got the shivers as she recognized her wrecked phone. Just as intended. These gestures always had a nice message behind them, which Widow liked to use for her own amusement.

“Y-Yeah… Sorry about that. I just… really like your voice. “

The quiet honesty surprised Widow. Nobody had complimented her on something so mundane like that in a long time. It felt nice in a distant, almost numb way.

“You do more than just collect sound samples.”

“Yes! I write fanfiction about you.”

“How many of you do I have to kill?”

“Uhm… you mean fans? Reading about you or just writing?”

“Both.”

“Well, there are about a thousand stories about you online, maybe half as much authors. They must have millions of viewers by now. You’re very popular, being so beautiful and dangerous.”

At the back of her mind, Widow knew that the little girl awkwardly tried to flatter her.

It worked.

She hadn’t known how to feel about having fans before, but Widow was increasingly amused by it.

_It’s like I’m back in the ballet. The audience still loves me._

Widow allowed herself a reminiscing smile, just because Emily couldn’t see it.

“I heard you are the most popular author of this ‘fanfiction’”

“Naturally, since I’m your biggest fa-urgh!”

“Cut it out already. Are there more of your caliber?”

“My… y-yeah. There’s Sagrada, she’s the second most popular and writes tragedies. Then there’s… Sica, she’s more into corny stuff.”

Widow made a mental note of those names, as well as Emily’s hesitation on the second one.

“And you? You call yourself my biggest fan, yet write abhorrent slander about me.”

The assassin’s voice turned bittersweet as if she wanted to confess her love, but instead she talked about her torture plan for Emily:

“I wonder if I should start by ripping out your lying tongue or by breaking every bone in your hands for composing this bile.”

It prompted another shiver from the girl below. As intended.

_So easily played._

“T-The one where Tracer goes mad, right?”

Widow’s foot let go of her little fan’s head, so Emily could make her case. The way Widow narrowed her amber eyes should be ample hint as to guess the answer. Emily cautiously looked upwards with her own light-brown pair of eyes.

_Like a beaten puppy._

“R-Right! That one was very experimental, a one-time thing, nothing worthy of repeat! The vast majority of my stories actually have you dominating Tracer. Which fits quite naturally!”

Widow raised another eyebrow. That sounded much more reasonable.

“They do?”

“Yes yes! The one I’m writing on right now, for example! Tracer hopelessly falls in love with you and you use her for your entertainment at every turn.”

_A lot more reasonable._

Widow found herself nodding once. Of course, she couldn’t see herself ever doing something so naïve as to fall in love with someone. She had no use for these feelings. However, amusement is what she practically lived for these days.

“At every turn you say?”

“Quite deviously so!”

Emily shifted over to the couch beside her and opened the notebook again. The little fan quickly navigated the screens until a document opened. It wasn’t the same interface as the one Sombra had shown Widow; This was the original document.

“Here, that’s the first chapter! It begins back when you met Tracer and Winston at the museum. Only this time you and Reaper emerge victorious!”

Widow stared at the notebook.

“Do you think I would read this? _Absurdité._ It’s not like I would enjoy that.”

Emily fidgeted around, trying to think of something. Widow had to admit being at least a tiny bit curious, but she didn’t show it. Having her little fan beg for it was much more tolerable.

“And… if it’s my last wish? You can still do me in afterwards, if you really don’t like it. Please?”

Emily looked up to her with hopeful, glimmering eyes, nibbling at her lower lip with anticipation. Kind of like a puppy wanting to be picked up at an animal shelter. Widow grimaced at the thought and set Widow’s Kiss down for the moment, leaning her rifle against the couch.

“Fine. I’ll have your head if you waste my time, foolish little girl…”

 

 

* * *

 

 

Lena suddenly sneezed as if someone far away had mentioned her by name. She was going across campus on the new grounds of Overwatch HQ. It was much less pompous than the last, more built for security and utility, at least in the main building. There was a canteen, agent quarters and an administrative building off to either side of the campus. She looked up at the clouds above while sniffling a bit.

“What a shitty day outside. I wish I could’ve stayed at home…”

A dopey smile found its way on her lips, thinking back to what might await her there.

_I won’t do anything funny, but I sure as hell gonna watch her sleep all day._

“Not only you! I’ve barely gotten any sleep, nhoooh…~”

Lena tensed up as a shrill, sleepy voice drew her out of her voyeuristic dreams. Hana fell in line beside Lena and quickly pressed up to her. The little Korean was lacking energy, as if she would collapse at any moment now. At least she managed to have one eye barely open.

“Let me guess: You pulled an all-nighter?”

“…”

“Not in the mood for a lecture? Might want to wake up before we meet Mom on the way.”

Hana shivered in her body suit.

“I’ll straighten up when I see her…”

_Why do I doubt that?_

Lena rolled her eyes and laid an arm around Hana to make walking easier on both of them. They entered the large main hall soon enough and wandered towards the elevators. There wasn’t much going on this morning, just some agents checking in, accountants wandering between offices and secretaries tapping away at computer terminals.

“Do you have any idea what the emergency is about?”

“Howshdeikno…”

“Sorry luv, I don’t speak ‘sleepy Korean’”

Hana grumbled, prompting a smirk from Lena.

“Something really stupid I bet, like our peanut butter supply running low…”

Lena pressed the elevator button and smirked while watching sleepy Hana struggle to keep standing.

“Oh, I think Winston wouldn’t call us all for… some… thing… like… huh.”

The elevator opened in front of them to the sound of someone squirming helplessly. Lena’s jaw dropped and Hana instantly straightened up.

Two women inhabited the elevator. One was pressing the other against a wall, wrapping her hands around the poor, squirming girl to grab fistfuls of her butt, all the while silencing her with a quite lewd interlocking of lips.

It took some time before Angela finally let go of that poor girl. She did so in one go and began straightening her hair and doctors overall in order to leave the elevator. Her sky-blue eyes found Lena and Hana standing there in mild shock. The doctor greeted them with a satisfied smirk, wordlessly walking past them in the direction of the hospital wing.

The small pair of heroes stood there, looking at poor Fareeha who was in the middle of collapsing along the elevator wall. The door threatened to close. Hana activated the sensors with one arm. They stared at her for a few more moments.

“Err, we should go in?”

“Yeah.”

The two of them approached Fareeha and tried to help her up from either side. The Egyptian girl was wearing jeans, a colorful shirt and a black leather jacket. She also looked a little more than just flustered and was tense like a strung rope.

“You okay, luv?”

“Y-Yes… no! Maybe?”

Fareeha shivered all over, clearly confused. Hana giggled girlishly.

“I think I would answer like that if Angie ever did that to me.”

“Me too.”

They tried to console her that way, but Fareeha’s blush just got worse.

“But I didn’t think Pharah would. She’s normally so cool and composed!”

“Yeah, if any of us got a chance…”

Fareeha whined in desperation.

“Y-You two don’t understand… she’s got two decades of experience on me. I can’t keep up!”

Hana purred at that.

“So hot! She can show you all kinds of things!”

“Stop it Hana, she’s already as red as a beet.”

Lena said that, but giggled all the same as Fareeha buried her face in her hands. Thankfully, it was a long ride to the tenth floor.

 

 

* * *

 

 

“You’ve got that from our raid on Volskaya?”

“Oh yes, satellite footage is really helpful! It was awesome how you strangled that one guy with your grappling hook!”

At some point Widow had taken the notebook onto her knees. Around chapter 2, her little fan had climbed back onto the couch to point out certain parts of the story and explain how she got the ideas for Widow’s motives and moves.

“This part is obviously ridiculous. I would never angle a rifle strike from below. You either ram it in straight or aim for the temple.”

“Why is that?”

“The goal is to strike someone unconscious, not to crack a jaw.”

“Fascinating!”

Emily quickly leaned over to correct that mistake. They were at the end of chapter 7 right now. At some point Emily had given up at holding her distance and sort of just pressed her side into Widows. A fool could think that they were actually cuddling up to another while reading a story.

“This won’t do.”

“Huh?”

Just as Emily wanted to lean back against the sofa, one light blue hand gripped both of her cheeks from below. Widow forced her to interlock gazes.

“You are clearly too incompetent when it comes to writing about me.”

“I-I’m shorry…”

“Since I don’t want you going around, tarnishing my reputation, _ma petit,_ I’m going to… instruct you.”

The word ‘help’ had almost left her lips. Emily blinked a few times with her light-brown eyes, looking like a chipmunk by the way Widow was holding her cheeks.

“You will?”

“Don’t make me repeat myself. You will send every new chapter directly to me before publishing it. Publish a chapter without me or tell anybody about this deal and I’ll drive a bullet through your cute little head.”

Emily blinked a few times at that. Slowly but surely, her little fan developed a blush. Widow realized her error too late.

_That was meant as a tease, not a compliment you stupid girl…_

There was an awkward silence. At one point, Widow finally let go and quickly looked away. She typed an e-mail address into the text document and was about to close the notebook when Emily interjected by putting her hand on the assassin’s.

“Uhm! S-Sorry, there’s one more chapter.”

Widow’s amber eyes observed her dangerously.

“So?”

“I finished it today. It’s in another folder. I was wondering… if you could help me go over that one, too?”

Emily was smiling shyly her way. She was visibly nervous for asking such a thing, but apparently couldn’t let the opportunity pass.

For a moment, the French woman was at a loss. She questioned herself why she was sitting here at all; Reading stories with a random girl… that seemed to like her and what she did a lot.

_Normality used to bore me to death. Is it her adoration?_

There was no way to be certain. Most of Widow’s feelings were either numb or faint. Sometimes the echoes of emotions, long forgotten, tugged her along for a ride. Sometimes just her sub consciousness remembered, making her rhyme and sing and dance like in the days of old.

Any witnesses would be strangled by her personally, of course.

“Is everything okay?”

Emily’s voice pulled her out of these thoughts. Her little fan was smiling with concern.

_You should be concerned for yourself… this is all wrong._

“Let’s… just read that last chapter of yours.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

They were a bit late to the meeting, each for their own, separate reasons. Hana had been too sleepy to hurry up and it had taken Lena a long time from home with that splint to hobble over to the campus. Fareeha already reached the 10th floor on the elevator before, but a certain someone had taken her for a ride back down. The Egyptian trooper was still a bit flustered, but it was not as bad as before.

The meeting room was in uproar as the three of them entered.

“…ck that ungracious piece of shit!”

A man in a colorful biker jacket slammed his fist to the conference table before him.

“Look, Jack, I know how you feel, but she’s still the acting mayor of London.”

“We have been relegated to guard duty! Are you okay with that, Winston? We should hunt those bastards down!”

“For that matter, yes, I am okay with concentrating our resources to protecting the populace.”

Winston, a large, sentient gorilla and commander of Overwatch was in a heated discussion with his predecessor, Jack Morrison, an old and hardened military type. Also in attendance were Genji, best described as some kind of cyborg ninja and Jesse McCree, a gunslinger type hero.

“What resources?! You have Reinhardt and the medical department. The rest of us are sitting ducks!”

“And your quacking could wake the dead! I’m getting a headache over here, jeez! You should go easy on the vocal cords at your age, dad.”

Lena almost cracked up aloud as Hana chewed the old soldier out.

“I am NOT your father…”

The three of them had been taking seats on the conference table. The Korean stared with a seething gaze over to Jack, propping her head up into her hands and sticking her tongue out. Jack narrowed his eyes but ultimately shut up.

“Hello there to the three of you! Err, I guess that’s all of us. As you just heard, the rest of our top agents are busy keeping the peace outside.”

McCree mumbled something into his cigar, seemingly just as unsatisfied as Jack was. Genji chimed in, too.

“Apart from master. He has been mourning for his old friend all day. Seriously though Winston, I’ll start to rust if we get bogged down by politicians like that.”

“That’s why I called you all here. There is something we can do.”

That quickly garnered the cyborgs attention.

_“Nante omoshiroi.”_

Jack, Jesse and Fareeha were just as intrigued. The gorilla grinned cheerfully, as much as that was possible. He looked a bit more menacing than probably intended while doing so. Anyways, he had their attention.

“We cannot engage rioters, but Talon is another matter. Their activity in the city hasn’t stopped at Mondatta’s assassination. They used the chaos of last night as cover for another operation.”

The projector in the room showed a picture of an office building.

“That’s the Evening Standard, a London based newspaper operation.”

Neither of the heroes seemed to react to that in any meaningful way. Except for Lena who blinked a few times in confusion.

_Where have I heard that before?_

“Security cameras around the perimeter were hacked by Talon agent Sombra, as far as ATHENA could establish. Two police officers stationed on roofs were injured. The editor in chief, Nathaniel Bernstein, was attacked and interrogated by none other than The Widowmaker in his own office. His secretary found him with a severe head trauma and a stab wound to the shoulder.”

The room took a moment to process this load of information. Fareeha spoke up after having recovered from her earlier episode.

“How awful! Why would they target a journalist?”

It was Jack who provided analysis.

“Normally to stifle a certain type of coverage, but that doesn’t fit the bill. The Evening Standard is notorious for being neutral to the T.”

Hana’s head was planted firmly on the conference table while Winston continued.

“We know why. The victim managed to regain consciousness and stated that one of his reporters, a certain-“

A loud snore interrupted Lena’s capability to listen. She tried to shake Hana awake at the shoulder.

“… is the next target of Talon.”

Lena blinked a few times because the room was suddenly in uproar again. Had she missed something?

“What?!”

“And she’s just a reporter?”

“Is there no security?”

“Has she been found yet?”

“Is she really a-“

Another loud snore. Lena tried a bit harder to shake her back into the world of the living.

_Man, Hana should really wake up and pay attention!_

Finally, she managed to wake the beast. Hana blinked a few times, looking sleepily up to Winston.

“Yes. Nobody is supposed to know who this journalist really is. This is top-secret information and absolutely cannot leave this room. Her family has requested as much. We don’t know where she is at this moment, but as far as we know this Emily girl is the next target of Widowmaker.”

“WHAT?!”

The room was startled for a moment. The whole assortment of heroes was staring at Lena, who appeared to react about half a minute too late.

“Yes Tracer, is anything unclear?”

“I have to go!”

Lena scrambled to get onto her feet. Winston looked at her puzzled, surprised by the behavior.

“Where do you think you’re going? The meeting is not concluded!”

She looked back for a moment after rushing to the next best window. Her panic was plainly visible. Lena simply blurted out whatever came to mind.

“That girl is sleeping in my bed right now!”

Jesse promptly starting coughing on his cigar smoke while Lena opened the window, stepped on the frame and jumped, leaving the lot of them baffled.

The conference room reacted in different ways, with Hana grinning like an idiot, Fareeha biting her lower lip and the rest of them thoroughly embarrassed. Genji broke the silence with amused laughter as he stood up.

“Lena sure is full of surprises!”

 

 

* * *

 

 

People small as ants looked on with shock as a person jumped out from the tenth floor. The wind was coldly whipping at her face as she fell, making it hard to look straight ahead. Lena braced for the fall, blinking at the last second through some startled onlookers. Once, twice and thrice.

She finally landed on her feet and lost no time to accelerate to a sprint. She set a brisk pace. Her face felt numb from the cold rush and her bad foot instantly protested with sharp pain.

_Fuck the splint; Fuck my leg, if only I can make it home in time!_

Lena cringed, but forced herself to run across the campus. She left the property and stepped onto York Way, crossing the busy street with little care for the ongoing traffic in a matter of two blinks, but failed to raise her foot high enough for the road curb. Lena fell, face first, barreling onto the sidewalk.

_Shitshitshit!_

Lena prepared to hit the ground hard. Then she felt a gush of wind blow past as someone rushed to catch her fall.

“Woah! Jesus, Genji! Talk about timing!”

Adrenaline coursed through Lena, making her laugh ecstatically.

“ _Mada mada!_ We’ll be faster if you hold on tight!”

The cyborg lost no time. He used his position, having gone down to a squat to catch Lena, boosting the start of his sprint. Lena squealed with joy, being a speed junky and all, while trying to hold on as the ninja suggested.

“Go faster Genji! Take a left turn over there!”

They were working in tandem before long with Lena shouting directions as they traveled through the streets of London with inhuman speed.

_Hang in there Emily!_

 

 

* * *

 

 

This chapter was in much more need of correction than the ones before, mainly because Emily had just finished it.

“At least your French is quite acceptable.”

“Oh, thanks! I learned a lot from you.”

“I don’t talk that much.”

“More like… me imagining you do it? It sounds weird, I know.”

Widow didn’t think on these comments anymore. The little fan’s adoration wasn’t bothering her like she thought it would. It instead felt somewhat satisfying, a little bit more with each time.

They came across a scene with Widow on a bell tower. Widow already knew by heart that her in-story counterpart tried to lure Tracer there before it was revealed to the reader, so she was especially into this part, fully immersed in the story. The twist came as expected and had her smirk with satisfaction because of the correct prediction.

Another twist followed closely afterwards, much to her surprise this time. In-story Widow forced herself on Tracer, playing with her, slowly threatening to unveil Tracer’s desperate moans on the intercom of her fellow Overwatch agents.

_Quelle idée diabolique…_

Until she eventually did.

_Si cruel! Exquisite._

Widow read on intently until she reached the conclusion and subsequent cliffhanger. Only after that did she notice that her face felt a lot warmer. Her breathing was irregular, too. She felt as if she had just pulled off a grand assassination in front of a large crowd.

For some reason, she thought of Sombra’s stupid grin. A blue pair of hands gripped the notebook harder.

_If she notices… I’ll have to kill her after all._

Widow turned her head to look at Emily’s reaction, but there was none.

Her little fan had fallen asleep on her shoulder, weakly holding onto Widow’s arm. Red hair was flowing down freely between them, covering half of the freckled girl’s face. For some reason Widow hadn’t noticed. Only now did the warmth to her side truly register.

_We both didn’t catch any sleep tonight. She must’ve been exhausted all this time._

Widow’s killing intent evaporated completely. She closed the notebook in front of her, returning the room as close to darkness as the clouded autumn day outside would permit.

_This will do._

There was no further movement inside the living room. Widowmaker allowed herself to rest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Nante omoshiroi ~ How interesting_  
>  _Si cruel! Exquisite. ~ How cruel. Exquisite._  
>  _Quelle idée diabolique... ~ What a devilish idea..._  
>   
>  I've finished this one quite fast. It was a ton of fun to write the Emily x Widow scenes! Did you like them?  
> Let's see what happens when Genji and Lena join the fun in the next chapter~


	6. A Tale of Jealousy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's getting hot in here, so take off all... eh, you know the song. ♪L(´▽｀L )♪

“Well, someone seems eager to get their morning exercise.”

A giant gorilla harrumphed and lumbered over to the window that Genji had just jumped through. The room was still a bit in awe at what exactly had happened there. Winston closed the window and then returned to his position in front of the meeting table. He cleared his throat.

“As I was about to say…”

“Winston?”

Surprise was clear on his face. He hadn’t expected to be interrupted by Hana of all people, with her sleeping through the whole meeting prior and all.

“Yes D.Va?”

“Don’t you think this is highly suspicious?”

 “She’s right. It reeks of an attempt to lead us on.”

Jack looked a bit sullen that he had to agree. Hana shot the old soldier a sly grin.

“What do you mean?”

Winston watched the two of them trying to make light of Sombra’s carelessness.

“Since when does this Sombra chick make mistakes? I mean she’s, like, the best hacker? Why would ATHENA catch her tampering with cameras?”

“Maybe because it is already too late for little miss Emily. So, we’re supposed to focus on her and miss other clues.”

“Nah, I think she’s alright.”

The whole room looked at Hana, expecting her to follow up in some way. The Korean just shrugged her shoulders, grinning mysteriously. Jack of course couldn't let that fly.

“Might wanna explain your thinking?”

“I just know.”

“And how do you know that?”

“It’s woman’s intuition! Of course, you wouldn’t know anything about that, _Dad_ , since you never had a woman in your life.”

A vein was pulsing dangerously at Jack's temple.

“Why, you little… quit that cheeky attitude or-“

“Or what?!”

“I’ll make you!”

Winston was a bit overburdened at how quickly this went out of control. Soon Jack and Hana were in a full-fledged argument. Both were standing at this point, bordering on a shouting match.

"You can never take this stuff seriously! You should go back to your games until you learned some responsibility!"

"Oh yeah?! Well maybe _you_ take this stuff way too serious! Your hairs falling out as we speak, baldy!"

“Errm… guys, I don’t think this is the best-“

They turned in unison towards him.

“SHUT THE HELL UP!”

Then they went right back at it.

“You don’t scream at the commander like that, young girl!”

“Are you stupid, old man? You just did the same!”

Winston was at a loss and tried to look for help with the other heroes. Pharah seemed to be spacing out, even drooling a bit, so she wouldn’t be of much help.

“Jesse, can you back me up here?”

No reaction.

“Jesse?”

Winston tried to shake him by the shoulder. The cowboys head rotated to his shoulder, revealing that Jesse was having a siesta underneath. 

_I could use some peanut butter right now._

 

 

* * *

 

 

She heard the front door below being opened in a hurry. It was even less difficult with them rushing up the stairwell shortly after. They would disturb her well-earned rest before too long.

_How annoying._

The spider didn’t move. There were instances going through her head. She entertained a myriad of possibilities.

_I could depart._

Amber eyes opened amidst the darkness.

_Non. What an utterly boring thought._

She turned towards her newest acquaintance. Emily was still peacefully sleeping at her side. The sight gave Widow a most devious inspiration.

_Reading all these stories… At every turn, was it? Yes, that sounds fun._

A devilish smirk developed on the spider’s lips. She would need to prepare.

_Quelle est la vôtre… sera la mienne._

 

 

* * *

 

Lena fiddled with the keys for the front door.

“Somethings wrong, I can feel it!”

“We’ll be up there in no time.”

After opening the door, Lena took his words to heart and blinked ahead in record time, approaching the third floor, leaving Genji behind for the moment.

_Please, don’t let her take this away from me, too!_

Her hands were shaking with the key again, but the door to her apartment was open soon enough.  Tracer saw the darkness within and was initially relieved.

_She must be in bed already._

As she went through the threshold, Tracer felt her hopes being crushed in vain. Amber eyes stared at her from amidst the darkness. The gaze made her skin crawl. She felt like facing a feline predator on the prowl, prompting the urge to step back.

Widowmaker smiled leisurely towards her.

“Y-You’re here!”

As Tracer’s eyes got used to the darkness, she could make out every detail. The spider shifted her attention towards a girl, sitting right next to her on the couch. Emily’s shirt had been wide enough so that her bare shoulder could show, which it did now. The red-haired girl didn’t seem to put up a fight as Widow tenderly caressed the area around her ear, kissing the little reporters neck on the other side.

“W-What have you done to her?!”

Amber eyes stared intently at Tracer from beyond the nape. The predator stopped enjoying her prey for a moment to answer breathlessly.

_“Everything.”_

Widowmaker’s voice was dripping with smug satisfaction, taunting her, adding a wink for additional effect. The heroine was trembling with a mix of shock, concern, jealousy and pure anger. Tracer had trouble comprehending. It was surreal.

_What is this… I… she’s alive? But…_

While the spider was doubtlessly leaving a mark on Emily’s neck, her hand wandered down to tenderly caress the little reporter’s bare thighs. Lena shivered at the sight of them, blood rushing into her head.

_This… this bitch!_

Genji arrived on the scene shortly behind her and immediately started to stifle a fit of laughter.

“Whoa! If that’s what assassination looks like, I want some too!”

“Genji, you’re not helping!”

Lena tried to compose herself.

“S-Stop doing that to her this instant! Or… or-“

A low moan came from Emily. The small girl shivered and angled her head, presenting her neck, like a fawn that wanted to be mauled.

Lena could feel the heat rise in her cheeks. Another smug look from Widowmaker was enough to let her blood boil over. She felt as if a match was struck within her head.

**“Get the fuck away from her!”**

Lena rapidly advanced towards Widowmaker, either to snap her neck or to throw her out the window. Her emotionally driven body hadn’t yet decided on the scale of brutality she wanted to inflict when something ripped her right out of the acceleration. A strung-up steel rope caught her foot and made her reel forward. Lena only had a split-second to think.

_Fuck_

This time, her face squarely hit the parquet floor. Her world was spinning. Milliseconds later, she could hear something clunky hitting the floor beside her with a telling 'Bonk'.

There was an awkward moment of silence.

“T-Tried to catch me again…?”

“Y-Yeah…”

“We really fell for the rope trick…”

“Yup…”                                                                

The two heroes were lying face down on the floor, some ways off from the couch. Lena felt dizzy, having basically crashed into the floor at full speed. It was hard to focus at all. She just noticed the smell of fried circuits.

“I can’t move.”

“What…?”

“It’s… some kind of hack… I can’t…”

She could observe Genji trying to struggle, but he mostly just lay there like a stone, occasionally twitching. Lena tried to move, too, but quickly found herself entangled in the rope with her bad foot. She painfully flinched as a result and tried to regain her strength for another try.

A distinctly French laugh invaded their ears. Lena stemmed one hand against the floor and looked up again with a bloody, albeit intact nose, shivering with embarrassment as well as resentment. Widowmaker seemed to have a grand old time watching them struggle.

“What’s so funny?!”

Widow caressed the slowly awakening Emily for a last time at the cheek before standing up from the couch, taking Widow’s Kiss over her shoulder.

“Because you are so predictable, _ma Cherie_. Don’t worry about your little friend, it will wear off in time. We wouldn’t want him to interrupt, don’t we?”

A chill crept up her spine. Lena was clenching her teeth, trying to steady herself as she looked up.

“Why… Why do you have to do this to me?! First, you kill Mondatta and now… now… “

The spider came closer during the monologue and squatted down in front of her. Genji looked like he tried his best to move, but barely managed to get more than a shuffle through the paralyze.

“Oh, don’t worry. I am not here to kill anyone… yet. I’m here all for myself.”

Her amber eyes were looking like she took pity on the small girl that could barely hold herself together. Lena felt so angry and helpless and confused.

“If Emily is not your target… why? Why do this?!”

A blue hand softly caressed the area around her ear, lifting her gaze. Lena flinched away from it, closing one eye, but her strength was considerably diminished from the pain, making the movement look half-hearted. The touch was cold, but the assassins skin compensated in softness. Their eyes met for a moment. Widow was whispering in a musical voice, grinning deviously.

“Foolish little girl. Because I relish in seeing you struggle. It’s the most amusing thing to me.”

Lena took some time to comprehend the implications. It was impossible to tell whether her blush was still from before, or from this weirdly intimate moment. At the same time, she felt a cold rush in her neck, prompted by sheer horror. Then it all burst out.

 “Y-You’re the worst! I hate you! Just leave us alone!”

A single tear rolled down Lena’s cheek. Widow caught it with a thumb and let go off the little Brit, licking it off with a condescending smile.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

She couldn’t quite regulate her breathing at the sight before her and it was incredibly hard not to start masturbating on the spot. Emily was unbelievably horny right now.

_This must be a dream…_

First, the formerly so prude Widow had actually caressed and kissed her like a lover would. Emily couldn’t understand then, but now she knew that it was all a scheme to get Lena riled up. Then Widow would walk over with that catwalk body of hers and tease the little Brit up close.

_She’s just like in my stories…_

“Y-You’re the worst! I hate you! Just leave us alone!”

_Oh god, she licked her tear off!_

“I’ll take that as a compliment for a job well done, wouldn’t you agree?”

Emily practically melted on the couch, feeling up the part of her throat that had been ravished by the French women.

_So evil…!_

“I’ll grant your request though. I wouldn’t want my newest toy to break already. Even though this has been quite amusing.”

Widow stood up at this point.

“Oh well, _c'est la vie._ ”

Turning towards the window she came from, the spider aimed to take her leave. However, not before taking her time to blow Emily a kiss.

The little reporter shivered with delight. She could feel herself smiling shyly in return. Stepping on the frame, the femme fatale left the scene, vanishing into the dark, autumn day outside.

_That was another tease for Lena… this is so hot!_

Emily didn’t use jealousy as a theme all that much in her stories, but that would change now. Nobody seemed to stop Widow, with Lena lying defeated on the ground and Genji failing to get up at all. After she finally got her head out of the clouds, Emily observed them for a moment.

“At least… she’s gone Lena. Movements coming back to me… Everything’s okay now.”

Genji managed to shakily get onto one knee. Lena on the other hand let her head audibly fall against the parquet floor, lying there uselessly.

“Nothing’s okay… T-That… that bitch just came in here as if she owns the place!”

Her voice was shrill and lamenting.

“But nobody got hurt, right?”

“Of course not! Y-You heard her; she came in here just to fuck with my head…”

Lena sounded emotionally strained to the maximum.

“I feel so awful, Genj, I wanna die…”

It felt bad all of the sudden having enjoyed this as much as Emily did. She bit her lower lip and pushed her sleepiness away, shakily standing up.

Small sobs were coming from Lena right now as she tried to bury her head further below her arms. The cyborg seemed at a loss as to how to approach this mess of a situation, frantically looking about the room as he finally managed to stand. He crossed gazes with Emily and noticed her nodding towards the front door.

_Come on metal boy, I’m giving you an out here…_

Genji stared at her for a moment, then slowly nodded in agreement.

“I…  will head back and let Doctor Ziegler look at my functions. I’ll also inform Winston that nobody got hurt. Don't dwell too much on this, Lena. It won't do you any good”

There was relief hidden in his voice that somebody much more suited for the task would deal with the cheering up. Genji hobbled out of the room, quietly closing the front door behind him.

_Finally, alone… How to even begin without gushing all over her?_

Emily had a stupid grin for a second there, but forced it away in place of a truly concerned look.

_Not yet._

“Lena?”

“Y-You’re awake?”

Nibbling on her lower lip, she knelt in front of that self-loathing mess. Lena looked up after sniffling once. Her cheeks weren’t exactly tear-stricken, but a few rolled down the reddened skin nonetheless. The heroine wiped away her tears and quickly went back to trying to get rid of the rope that entangled her leg. However, she couldn’t manage alone. Emily tried to help her with that. 

 _That fall probably made the sprain in her leg worse…_ _poor Lena._

Seeing her flinch in pain was awful. They held onto each other by the arms as soon as they freed her leg and until they managed to get Lena onto her knees.

“A-Are you alright Emi?”

“I should ask you the same. You look awful.”

She smiled while saying that, trying to cheer her roommate up. In the meanwhile, she wanted to see if Lena had hurt herself in any other way from the fall, looking at her from all sides.

“Emi, seriously! Did she do anything to hurt you?”

There was an earnest, concerned look in Lena’s hazelnut eyes, countering the little reporter’s playfulness. Emily was at a loss for a second, thinking about how she would answer.

“Well, she… pressed my head to the ground for a while with her high-heeled boots, but it didn’t really hurt. It was just kinda humiliating.”

“She… what?!”

“Y-Yeah…”

Lena was literally speechless while Emily went straight back to being horny just thinking about it. In the meanwhile, the little reporter tried to clean the blood off Lena’s face with her shirt. It would have to be washed afterwards anyway, with all the sweat and violet lipstick on it.

Emily thought she could catch Lena stealing a few glances, with her lifting the bunny shirt and all, but there was none of that. Only concern and despair.

“What… what else did she do to you?”

_I can’t tell her everything. She wouldn’t understand._

“We… talked on the couch and didn’t really do anything. Then I kinda fell asleep and was waking up to… this. She was pretty distant all this time, so I was kinda surprised.”

Surprise was visible on Lena’s face, too. She obviously didn’t expect that Widow and Emily had just been talking to each other. The small Brit averted her gaze and tried to make light of it.

“So... Widow made a last minute decision to stick it to me, I guess.”

“Maybe she planned it? But she didn’t want to do something until you showed up to see it.”

_Come on… don’t be like this. You’re supposed to be the cheerful one._

It was difficult to witness Lena this way. Emily had an idea though, so she tried some banter with a playful smile.

“Maybe I’m not her type?”

Lena looked confused for a second before she understood the quip. She managed to return a chuckle and a weak smile.

“She has terrible taste if that’s true.”

“There has to be something good about her taste though, since she clearly likes you.”

Emily’s smile grew mischievous after seeing her words resonate. They were coming a bit closer to each other, mainly on Emily’s part. Lena on the other hand looked blindsided. Maybe because she wasn’t used to Emily flirting with her like this. They were slowly embracing, gazing into each other’s eyes.

_I know you need this. She hasn’t stolen me away, I’m right here._

She tried to look reassuring. After what seemed like an eternity of gazes, their lips finally touched, brushing lightly against one another. Lena relaxed somewhat into their caresses, but remained largely stiff.

It wouldn’t let up.

_She's not into it... I guess Widow left a mark._

Emily carefully backed away from the kiss, searching Lena’s features for a reason.

“Something’s wrong, isn’t it?”

“N-No, it’s… nothing.”

The little Brit was blinking a few times and then tried to avert her gaze.

_Don’t become like me, Lena. Lying doesn’t suit you._

“No pressure. You can tell me if something bothers you. If not, we can just go to bed for now.”

_…can’t stop the innuendos, can I?_

Emily tried to play it off with natural naivety, sincerely hoping that Lena would lighten up in the next few minutes. She felt a desire for her.

“It’s… it’s just… I’m not in the mood anymore. Emi, I’m so sorry, I…”

Lena’s voice was faltering. Emily’s breathing was getting irregular by just witnessing her idol in this state. It felt like there was a stone in her gut.

_I think my heart is breaking._

The little reporter closed her eyes, trying to focus.

_I can do this._

Emily quickly moved in to gently caress her roommates neck, trying to calm her, shifting her weight so they could support each other. She whispered her words in a soothing manner.

“It’s okay if you don’t want to right now. Is it something that won’t go away from its own?”

Lena shivered while being taken into Emily’s arms.

“She… has claimed you, hasn’t she?”

Those hazelnut eyes sullenly stared at the kissing mark that had been left by the spider on her neck. Lena’s mood brought Emily down, too. They both stared at the parquet floor for a moment.

Then Emily got another idea.

_If this works… This’ll be… hot._

“Yes, she has. But… Lena, you've got to…”

Her cheeks burned just from the thought. One of her pale hands slowly slid into the spiky, brown mess of Lena’s hair, softly pressing that cute little head towards Widow’s mark, right up until she could reach Lena’s ear herself. The heroine was perplexed by the move, but didn’t react yet.

“Please, Lena… “

Emily was shivering as she whispered the words with warm breath into Lena’s ear.

“…claim me back”

Even if it was for every fiber in her body, Lena couldn’t possibly resist such an invitation and gasped for air as instinct overwhelmed her. They embraced each other again, partly shivering. Lena obeyed, kissing her neck and ultimately sucking on that stretch of skin, trying to leave her own mark on top of the old.

Emily’s light-brown eyes rolled around in their sockets. A lusty smile developed on her lips.

It all came so close.

_I’ve got her back! It’s like they’re indirectly kissing… through me._

It felt delicious, to be claimed like that, twice in a row. That is when a realization hit Emily. Delusions of grandeur took hold of her as she was slowly pushed down to the floor by her new lover. She began laughing quietly, cheerfully among small moans and gasps for air.

Visions of the three of them together clouded her mind. Emily saw stars, blushing Lena’s, smirking Amélie’s, heard church bells and husky French whispers.

_I need to make this fiction a reality!_

“Emi? Is everything-“

Emily’s eyes cleared up. Lena had stopped kissing her neckline to look up in concern, still a bit shivering from the sudden rush of desire.

“Lena!”

“Y-Yes, Emi luv?”

“Carry me to the bedroom!”

Lena blinked a few times in confusion, but then her usual self finally kicked in. She abruptly snorted with laughter.

“Just now you were spacing out and now you’re… ah, fuck it! Like a bride?”

In a weird way, they started to cheer each other up. Emily just grinned daringly in return.

“Wanna make me one?”

“But darling, there’s no priest in sight!”

“Aww, what a shame…”

During their little banter and giggles, Lena obliged, lifting her lover up with one arm behind the back and the other under the knees. Emily promptly threw her arms around Lena’s neck. The heroine had little problems, just needed to walk slowly because of her leg and still shivered a bit from the whole ordeal. They didn’t care. They just smirked at each other stupidly.

“Lena?”

“Yes, lovely wife-to-be?”

“I’m seven shades of horny right now.”

“Oh gee, what can we do about that?”

“Hmm… how about you do me?”

“I thought you’d never ask!”

That bit was probably supposed to be way cockier than it actually sounded: Truthful and relieved.

The bedroom door closed behind them.

 

 

* * *

 

 

“Oh, come on! Why’d they wander off?!”

Sombra whined aloud, wriggling around in her chair. She was sweating profusely from the sudden warmth in her room. Her body had sunk down in the seat. The rig in front of her showed a dim living room, somewhere in London, probably filmed from a console camera on top of the television.

“They could’ve at least given me a show, since Miju didn’t have the curtesy to die properly!”

She made an angry pout and licked her fingers clean. Widow had seemed like she was really into the stories on that one notebook, but Sombra hadn’t anticipated how inspired her colleague would be by Miju’s stories. It had been a surprising delight to watch.

_Good thing I have all that on tape…_

Still, Sombra had been massively jealous through most of it.

“I won’t forgive her! Growing so close to Amélie…”

Sombra sighed after that little tantrum.

“Ah well, plan B failed. But we managed to get Widowtracer a bit further!”

That was good news after all. Her feet were dangling below in excitement with her panties flopping around one of her ankles.

“She’ll die with the next one, won’t she Senor Fluffles? Plan C will be absolutely foolproof after all!”

Her little bunny was sunbathing below a lamp in Sombra’s closet. He had a little space there consisting of a hay bed, a water dispenser and a toy house he could hide in.

“Yeah, you’re right… we need to go back to Starcraft practice, too! So much to do, so little time~”

“I’d say ya have way too much free time, missy.”

Sombra was startled immensely, shrieking a bit and immediately trying to pull her shirt down.

“ _Tu bastardo desconsiderado!_ Why do you think I lock the fucking door for?!”

A human sized figure dangled from the ventilation shaft at the top of her room. It wasn’t quite human though. It was a small gorilla in a track suit, giving Sombra the most unimpressed look his kind could probably muster.

“Remember how ya called me here in the first place? Also, don’t bother hidin’ whatever. You humans disgust me with or without clothing.”

Hammond, the newest addition to Talon, let himself down from the ventilation shaft and sat on the desk in front of Sombra. Then he cracked his knuckles.

_So he was the one banging on the door a few minutes ago…_

“Fuck, it’s this late already? Sorry for making you take the detour Hammond.”

The small gorilla harrumphed, not at all appeased.

“Yeah yeah, I see ya had yer fun. Listen though, these nicknames ya people got are hella stupid. I mean who the fuck calls themselves “Reaper? Ya know what’s better than that?”

Sombra rolled with her eyes. They went through this every time. Hammond would go on and on about it.

“A real title. Ya know I got one. Start callin’ me by it, or I’ll bash yer head in.”

“Fine ‘Senor Doomfist’, crusher of humans, third of his name. Better?”

Hammond grinned, but it didn’t really change his aura. The little gorilla managed to look frighteningly volatile no matter what emotion he tried to convey.

“Lots. So, what’s this about that plan of yours? Somethin’ about shaking up a few million humans?”

_I knew he’d bite at that._

“At the very least! Think bigger Hammond, we’re gonna make waves across half the world! All I need you to do is...“

The little gorilla narrowed his eyes at first because she used his human-given name again, but he listened. Sombra grinned excitedly while explaining to her new accomplice what she had in mind. Her demeanor became more sinister, the further she went into the details. Plan C absolutely wouldn’t fail.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _c'est la vie ~ such is life_  
>  _Tu bastardo desconsiderado! ~ You inconsiderate bastard!_  
>  _Quelle est la vôtre… sera la mienne. ~ What's yours... will be mine._  
>   
>   
>  I was really surprised how many of you dear readers were agonizing over the week it took me to write the chapter.  
> I'll disclose that i actually had to rewrite the whole thing at some point. Sorry for that!  
> The first version was a lot more stupid and weird, which this story is supposed to be, but it didn't feel right. And I'm not into releasing stuff that feels wrong.  
> This version is a somewhat more serious. Say, dearest reader... do you like it ( ･ัω･ั)？


	7. Bedroom Talk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Since the last chapter ended at a bedroom door, I am proud to announce that this one will be 90% bedroom based!  
> In the other 10%, Widow finds somebody impatiently waiting for her to come home...

Consciousness was returning to her. She felt a softness around her body, like she was flying on some sort of cloud. A soft breeze was playing with her hair.

_This is kind of nice, isn’t it?_

As she opened her eyes, she saw a pair of hazelnut ones gazing back at her. Emily blinked a few times at the girl smiling from beyond the side of the bed.

“Awake, are we luv?”

Her new girlfriend had to be kneeling there, propping up her face on both arms, observing Emily with fascination.

“Uh… yeah, I guess.”

She could feel a blush creep up on her cheeks as she squirmed around for a while.

_This is normal. Just act normal._

“You know what?”

“Hmm?”

“I think you’re lying way too much, luv.”

It took Emily a moment to process what she just heard. Mainly because she was still sleepy. Eventually, Emily’s eyes widened.

“I’m-I’m not-”

Lena was ignoring the stammering without a hint of malice. There was just a friendly smile.

“You’re one of those pesky ‘fans’, aren’t ya? You know that I hate dating people like that. Lying doesn’t make that any better.”

Thoroughly baffled, Emily’s thoughts were struggling to keep up.

_Was I still logged into the notebook? Did she find out that way?_

“It’s pretty hard to tell if you’re actually into me, or just the thought of being with a hero.”

“O-Of course I’m into you! I… I like you a lot!”

Emily was sweating bullets at this point, struggling to properly sit up on the bed. Lena’s smile was full of pity for her.

“It’s sad, really. You’re lying so much that I can’t exactly trust you now, can I?”

Emily felt like being tossed into a pit of darkness, a pawn of gravity, ever falling. She couldn’t think of any words that would help repair this situation while everything fell apart around her.

_I can salvage this somehow, I…_

Her thoughts were interrupted by a familiar voice from the other side of the bed. They made her squeak like a startled mouse.

“Who cares who you trust?”

Widowmaker was standing by the bedroom window, elegantly approaching. Tracer immediately stood up in a confrontational stance.

“Well, I care. What are you doing here?”

“Does it matter?”

Lena’s blink towards Widowmaker left a blue aftereffect behind. This time no steel rope stopped her. She came to a halt in front of the French woman and jammed a finger into that blue cleavage.

“I was just in the middle of a stern talking to until you rudely interrupted, so yes, it does!”

Emily’s head was spinning.

_What the hell is even happening?_

Lena looked thoroughly affronted and balled her fists. The French woman laughed in her own, distinct way and prodded Lena’s forehead with a finger in return.

“Whatever she has done to get you mad, at least we can agree our little reporter has good taste in liking you.”

There was a sultry smirk on Widow’s lips. That line had been part of Emily’s and Lena’s banter yesterday before going to sleep.

“You! You’ve watched us the whole night, haven’t you?!”

“Oh, what if I have?”

Widow tried to take Lena’s chin by the hand, but that went too far. The smaller girl not only pushed the hand away, but also threw a punch the very next moment. It connected hard.

“THAT’s what!”

The French woman’s head whirled around to the side. Obviously not having expected such violence, her body reeled back a few steps as she held the side of the face that had been hit.

“Why you little…”

Widow’s words were seething with venom as she wiped a trickle of blood away. After the initial moment of recovery, Widow aimed to rush back at the insolent girl.

“Imbecile!”

“Bitch!”

“P-Please don’t fight…!”

Emily tried to call them to a resemblance of order, but it didn’t seem to work. She had a hard time processing this, so she opted to look away. Listening to what became an all-out brawl between the two wasn’t a big improvement though.

“You annoying…!”

“YOU’RE the annoying one!”

“I-I’m sure we can come to an understanding? Please?”

They didn’t seem to hear her at all.

“Let go, you pervert!”

“Die already!”

_This can’t be real!_

Emily quickly pressed her eyes shut as hard as she could and tried to calm down until her urges to hyperventilate subsided. It felt like a small eternity.

_This isn’t real… this isn’t real…_

She couldn’t even hear them anymore. Emily was scared to open her eyes again, even shivered a bit, but it had to be done eventually. Slowly she opened one, then both.

Her jaw dropped at the scene before her.

Lena and Widow were still entangled over there, but in an entirely different way. They were hugging their bodies tightly to each other. Their clothes had changed from their usual attire to matching skimpy, black leotards, fishnet stockings and fake bunny ears. The small Brit looked up with a shy expression and blushing cheeks.

“So, you really like me, luv?”

“Do I now? How bad do you want to know, _ma petit bête_?”

Widow looked a lot more confident, donning a teasing smirk. Her hands roamed all over Lena’s backside and occasionally the area around the little white bunny tail.

“Yes, please… please tell me!”

_Oh god… this is, like, straight out of Sica’s smut stories! I… don’t know if that’s an improvement._

While Emily tried to figure out how she felt about this perversion, imaginary Lena already made up her mind. She _desperately_ wanted this. Instead of actually telling her though, Widow just leant down, approaching Lena’s lips with her own, teasing with an agonizingly slow approach. As they finally touched each other, tenderly, leaning into the kiss, everything went blurry. Emily eventually keeled over from a nosebleed.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Consciousness was returning to her. She could feel her heart racing. The room was still dark.

“Oh god… Lena? You awake?”

“Hmm?”

“I had the most… exhilarating dream! It’s not something you would like, I think, but I’ll… I’ll be honest with you from now on.”

She could see the silhouette of Lena in the dark. The little Brit tried to reach around for the lamp on the nightstand beside the bed. Emily kept talking in the meanwhile.

“It was about you and Widow. First, you two were fighting and I really didn’t want that. Then it all kind of turned around and you two got along well.”

The nightstand lamp was turned on.

“Wait, that’s underselling it. You got along really, _really_ well, to the point of… you know, _that stuff_. I found that pretty hot, to be honest.”

To her surprise, Lena was wearing bunny ears. Emily blinked a few times.

“Err… why are you wearing that?”

As Lena turned around, Emily could make her out as a figure that was wearing a skimpy, black leotard and possibly even fishnet stockings. There was a concerning lack of boobs… and pretty much everything else that could be called feminine.

Her boss was looking at her with stern scrutiny.

“Mister Bernstein?!”

“This is the last straw Miss Emily, you’re fired!”

 

 

* * *

 

 

Emily threw her eyes open and sat up straight as a pole, breathing fast and bordering on another asthma attack. Her eyes darted around the room frantically.

“Hmmm… whazzit Emi…?”

Lena sounded a little more than sleepy. By sitting up, Emily had accidentally also pushed Lena’s arm away, most likely waking her up.

“Pinch me!”

The heroine blinked a few times. Then she sat up too and pinched the red-haired girl in the arm. The following instant squeal sounded like a dying baby animal.

“Oww!”

Emily held the arm where she had been pinched and her eyes started glistening in the faint light of that one cloudy autumn day. Lena sobered up at the sight.

“Hey hey, you wanted me to pinch you, right? I didn’t do it too hard, did I?”

She tried to console the little reporter, edging in close. They had been sleeping pretty close in the first place anyway.

“N-No, it’s… it’s okay, I just had a… a really bad dream.”

Emily sniffled a bit. Lena leaned down to kiss the abused spot.

“There there… That’s why you needed me to pinch you? I could’ve done all kinds of other things to make sure you’re awake, you know?”

Lena’s words were slurred from sleepiness. The time traveler tried to be sultry, but failed for the most part. She had a lot in common with some drunk girl at a bar, trying her drunken best to hit on Emily.

“S-Stop it…! Now’s not the time…”

Emily was embarrassed more than anything. Still, Lena grinned, clearly having her fun, and intertwined her legs with those of her lover.

“It’s not? You seemed to like it _a lot_ just a few hours ago.”

It was hard to tell in the dark, but Emily thought she saw Lena wriggling with her eyebrows for additional effect.

“W-Well yeah, I… I did… but…”

“So what’s the holdup, luv?”

Emily was squirming a bit and had a hard time resisting another round, especially with Lena grinding away at her. Smiling with that cute, sleepy smile so close to her face…

“I… I have to tell you something. Please?”

The redhead looked Lena directly in the eyes, so that it would be extra difficult to deny the request.

_She looks like a puppy… Hmm… we should get a puppy._

Lena giggled at her own thought process, but slowly loosened up her grin into a compassionate smile and stopped the incessant grinding.

“Okay, I’ll play nice for now. You had a pretty bad dream, is that it?”

“Well, yeah, kind of…”

“Wanna tell me about it, luv?”

“No it’s… just that one part. I was dreaming we were in bed-“

“-good start.”

“Stop iiit…”

Lena giggled some and let Emily continue. The redhead just sighed.

“What it comes down to is… I wasn’t honest to you all this time. And dream-Lena was pretty mad at me for that.”

Lena looked at her new lover confused, partly even hoping that this was supposed to be a joke.

“You weren’t honest?”

“Yeah.”

Lena raised an eyebrow.

“You’re not gonna tell me that you have a house, husband and two kids waiting for you in Dublin, do you?”

“N-No!”

Lena giggled stupidly.

“Then it can’t be that bad! What is it?”

Emily squirmed around in Lena’s arms while trying her best and failing at holding eye contact. Then she just let it all out.

“I told you that I knew you were Tracer from the start right? Well, that’s not all. I’m actually a huge fan of yours. I adore what you do and how you do it. I followed every step you take. It was a coincidence that we were both at the Mondatta speech, I swear but… as soon as I saw you fight on the roof, I had to be close at all cost. You were like a magnet to me.”

Emily made a small pause. They were looking at each other, which made her incredibly nervous, but there was no going back.

“This whole time I just pretended that it didn’t excite me just to be close to you. My boss actually let me go in the morning, because he figured that I couldn’t be objective when it comes to you. I had to take breaks to calm down, because I didn’t want you to be… disgusted with me.”

The red-haired girl slightly looked downwards while her monologue ended, as if she had committed a grave crime.

“My boss is right by the way. I can’t. I… I love everything about you too much.”

Emily had talked for so long, that the ensuing silence was weighing especially heavy between them. As she looked up for a split second, she could see the puzzlement on Lena’s face.

_She’s gonna dump me, isn’t she?_

Emily found it increasingly hard to breathe, but tried to stay realistic. She knew that Lena would have no use for a fan as her girl, having gathered as much from Tracer’s history.

_I’ll have to find a new home._

“Emi…”

“I… I’m sorry. I’ll go.”

Emily turned to put her clothes back on and leave.

 

 

* * *

 

 

_ 5 hours earlier. _

Widowmaker couldn’t quite put her finger on why everything turned out the way it did. In the end, this must have been the most agreeable solution. She found herself mildly curious as to how her fan’s little story would develop. It would be a welcome distraction from her usual line of work.

The London skyline was flying by. Her body practically moved by itself, going through the motions of traveling across the roofs on the outskirts of the British capitol.

A smirk was stuck on her face the whole time.

Her thoughts were going through all the different plot points again, letting Emily’s story play out in her head. Then she went through the events of this morning. Beating Tracer in a battle had always been amusing to her. To see her squirm and suffer like that, however, was more akin to pure fun. The artist in her was positively delighted.

_I should do that again sometime._

It took a moment to properly process her own thought. Widow stopped in her tracks and furrowed her eyebrows in sudden disappointment at herself.

_What am I thinking? Reading those stories is childish enough. ‘Playing’ with that foolish girl… ridiculous._

She shook her head and began to scale down from the building she was standing on.

_Moreover, I only entered that pact to keep a proper reputation. Oui. I can’t allow imbeciles to represent me. If this ‘Miju’ girl doesn’t, somebody else will._

The assassin sobered up and straightened herself after arriving at ground level. It helped that her irritatingly excited body had cooled down in the autumn wind.

After a few more steps, she came to a halt in front of an inconspicuously looking, rusted metal door at the heart of this narrow side alley. She hit a hidden switch, prompting a scanning device to emerge.

_Apropos imbeciles: I still have two more of my ‘greatest fans’ to go. I wonder how they will compare._

The device quickly decided that this was, in fact, Widowmaker and opened a sliding gateway that the façade of a door had been hiding. She stepped in absent-mindedly, but almost bumped into something in the process.

**“Where were you?”**

A black clad figure with a white mask and deep, husky voice stood in her way. He had his arms crossed and looked at her accusingly.

“I was out. What do you care?”

Widow frowned at Reaper.

**“You never ‘go out’.”**

“Well, today I did.”

**“And where did you go?”**

They both looked at each other in annoyed silence. Widow finally crossed her arms too and answered.

“None of your business.”

**“Of course it’s my business.”**

“I don’t see how.”

Reaper was clearly ticked off by that attitude, talking himself into a rage, accusingly pointing at her with one of his claws.

**“If I go through the trouble to make fish tacos for the four of us and you magically decide that today is the day that you have to ‘go out’ without telling me, of course it’s my damn business!”**

Widow narrowed her eyes in a cold gaze.

“So?”

**“So what?!”**

“Who would want to eat your disgusting food anyways?”

There was another long silence. She could observe Reaper twitch ever so slightly. Then he visibly gave up, turned around and skulked off with hanging shoulders.

Widow briefly wondered if she had gone too far with that one, especially since his tacos usually weren’t that bad. She almost felt a pang of guilt at the edges of her mind.

Almost.

Much of the facility was below ground level, as the elevator on her left hand side would attest to, but not all of it. Widow looked around while waiting for her ride downwards. Most of the facility looked barebones, apart from the greenery on ground level.

A few minutes went by riding the elevator and walking through the complex before she stood in front of Sombra’s room. Her mood hit rock bottom for today.

_A new record low. I’ve never been here twice on the same day._

The sliding door opened up following the touch of Widow’s hand to a sensor. Widow was surprised to see Hammond in the room, apparently in a lively discussion with Sombra.

“What’s that monkey doing here?”

Hammond narrowed his eyes, staring at her after hearing the insult. If he hated something more than to be called by his human-given name, it was being called after a smaller species of primate.

“WHAT DID’YA JUST SAY?!”

Hammond had a bit of an inferiority complex because of his height compared to the other gorillas. Widow always found that impossible not to exploit. The sentient gorilla jumped off Sombra’s desk and stared towards the French woman in the doorway with barely controlled aggression in his eyes.

“It seems our pet monkey has gone deaf.”

Widow allowed herself the faintest of smug smirks.

“YA FUCKIN’ SMURF!”

Completely losing his temper, Hammond rushed at Widow. He tried to jump her in sprinting speed, but Widow just spun out of the way, as a torero would in a bullfight. The gorilla flew into the hallway, hitting the opposing wall.

Widow leisurely entered the room, changing her attention to a still barely clothed Sombra.

“So?”

Sombra blinked a few times, positively startled to death by the sudden commotion.

“Uh…?”

“What the monkey was doing here, stupid girl.”

Hammond in the meanwhile had turned around, royally pissed off, and rushed at Widow again.

Widow casually touched a sensor to her side. 

“W-We were discussing plans, nothing too important. You know that gorillas can tear us humans’ limb from limb without much effort, right?”

The door closed. Something heavy collided with the door, producing a dull sound. The door wasn’t impressed.

“Sure. This one is just too inept when he’s agitated.”

“Huh…”

Sombra looked very uncomfortable right now, practically squirming and holding her t-shirt downwards with both hands. Amber eyes noticed panties dangling around a brown ankle.

“I did not know you swung _that_ way, _ami._ ”

The Mexican girl’s eyes widened. Widow had already donned a smug smirk in anticipation.

“N-Never! He interrupted me while… eh…”

“Go on.”

The French woman approached, taking her time while doing so. The Mexican girl was sweating profusely in the meanwhile.

 “I… eh… watched some…”

_I can’t tell her… come on Sombra, think of something!_

“…tentacle porn!”

Widow looked at her like she was an idiot.

“Convincing.”

“I know, right?”

Sombra laughed the most awkward laugh.

“I don’t even want to know what you really did, do I?”

_¡No, señora!_

Widow shook her head and looked around the multi-purpose bedroom.

“Pull your panties back up. Then tell me what you know about ‘Sagrada’ and ‘Sica’.”

Sombra obeyed hastily, but was somewhat thrown off by the question.

“I’m afraid… I don’t know much about the two of them, apart from their writing styles.”

Widow looked at her with an uncompromising stare.

“You expect me to believe that you found the name and occupation of this ‘Miju’ character, but nothing about those two?”

Apparently, Widow was making a good point, judging by how the little hacker was avoiding her gaze and fidgeting in her seat.

“Weeell… these things take time, _amiga_ , you know...?”

Widow’s eyebrow twitched.

_It’s taking too long already. How should I…_

Movement from the edge of her vision drew her attention. Upon seeing what was hiding over there, a devilish smile developed on Widow’s lips.

“If you have to make me wait, I’m sure we can find some way of recompense. I heard that I missed the taco party, so I guess I’ll need something else to quell the appetite.”

The French women slowly moved towards the only closet in the room and Sombra quickly realized her mistake.

“How about some _rôti de lièvre_?”

She hadn’t closed the closet.

“N-No, please! Everything but Señor Fluffles!”

Widow stood right in front of the half-opened hideout by now. The little bunny with the violet extension didn’t seem to be concerned in the slightest about the predator at his doorstep.

“What a silly name. I’ll just call him ‘dinner’.”

“Run Señor Fluffles! Run for your life!”

The bunny’s ears finally stood up, as he heard his owner call out in distress. He perked up with the rest of his body, too, looking around the room. He could flee into the little escape tunnel that his owner had prepared for this exact occasion. Of course, Señor Fluffles didn’t do that. Instead, he decided to hop out of the closet towards this strange woman. Then he curiously sniffed at her boot.

Sombra whined at the betrayal.

“Noooooo...”

Widow leant down to grab the little bunny by his neck fur. It didn’t resist or anything like that, just sniffed and looked around curiously.

“It looks like ‘dinner’ is far more cooperative than you are.”

“Wait! I… I just remembered what I know about them!”

There was an unsurprised smirk on Widow’s lips.

“Of course you do.”

“But I thiiink… you won’t like it.”

“Out with it.”

“Well… one of them was hard to track down. Very hard. That’s because she’s… err… operating out of Overwatch HQ.”

Widow was mildly surprised by that.

“Who? Is it an agent, or some kind of secretary?”

“I couldn’t trace it exactly. Then, sometimes, it’s all over the world! So I’ve come to the conclusion that it must be some sort of special agent… although it could be a diplomat or something.”

_That’s no good._

Widow was certain that her little associate wasn’t lying about this, but she couldn’t work with so little information. It could be any one agent. What annoyed her the most was that one of her enemies seemed to be actively writing these appalling, slanderous pieces about her from the safety of Overwatchs AI’s systems.

“Nothing can be done about that, for now. What about the other one?”

“Y-You have to promise to let Señor Fluffles go, first!”

The French woman narrowed her eyes. Surprisingly, the little hacker wasn’t crumbling under her gaze like usual. Since flaying a bunny wasn’t on her list of favorite activities anyway, Widow slowly let the little bunny back down on the ground.

“Fine. Now talk.”

Sombra looked immensely relieved, but still nervous.

“Well… you see… that other one. Err…”

Señor Fluffles just began to hop around Widow’s feet for some reason, even as she approached the little hacker.

“Yes?”

“That’s… me.”

There was a moment of pure silence between them. It would’ve been the archetypical moment for chirping crickets, but bunny hops and sniffles would have to suffice.

“Why am I not surprised?”

“Sorry…”

Sombra nervously pressed her index fingers together and looked away. Widow thought about their predicament for a while.

“Show me.”

“Huh?”

“One of your stories, stupid girl.”

The little hacker looked up with genuine awe.

“You… you actually want to read one?”

“Of course.”

Widow cracked with her knuckles while donning a menacing smile.

“It’s the only way to determine your punishment.”

Sombra squealed in terror.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Even while Emily tried to claw her way out of the bed, Lena had none of it. She pulled her back in at the waist. Quite effortlessly, too, since Emily had basically no fat or muscle development from physical activity other than jogging.

“Heeeey…!”

“Ah ah ah, where do you think you’re going?”

Emily whined for a while before she accepted her fate.

“I… I don’t know…”

“Just stay here then, Emi. Let’s talk.”

Lena tried to sound cheerful, but everything was kinda awkward right now. That was also reflected in Emily’s clear uncomfortableness. She wouldn’t just keep on talking on her own, so Lena continued while pulling her into a loose hug on her lap.

“Why did you think that I’d be disgusted by a fan?”

“W-Well… it’s not just about being your fan…”

Emily fidgeted around, but at least stopped her struggles to get away. She wasn’t easing into the loose hug either, though.

“I don’t get it, Emi.”

“How should I-…”

She tried to think of fitting words while looking anywhere but Lena’s eyes, nibbling on her lower lip until she finally found her voice again.

“…it’s known online that you… err… some people say you kinda… get abusive when your date turns out to be a fa-eek!”

Suddenly, Emily felt herself being pushed back into the bed at both shoulders. As she recovered from the surprise, she could see Lena towering over her with reddened cheeks and an incredulous facial expression.

“They what?! Who says that? I never get abusive!”

The irony was completely lost on Lena, which almost made Emily snort aloud.

“U-uh, well… there was this one girl who claimed to date you, and she had proof to back it up. She wrote about it online.”

“She’s lying! I would never!”

Emily looked away. She still felt awkward.

“I thought so too but, ah… then… there were like two more chiming in, sharing their stories about dating you, so…”

_These wankers, bitching behind my back!_

Lena thought about the best way to repair this misconception. It was a bit harder to think while being flustered.

“Gosh, this is so embarrassing… I never treated any one of them bad, I swear! It’s just… I lost interest in them because those girls idolized me like I was some freaking item on a pedestal and not a real human.”

“I guess they didn’t take that well...?”

“No shit! They decided to make up utter bollocks about me!”

Emily flinched and Lena instantly regretted her little outbreak. An awkward silence settled between them. Emily didn’t know where to look or what to do, just squirming about, while Lena tried to calm down.

“I’m sorry, I went a bit loud there…”

“It’s okay…”

The dim lighting made it hard for them to see each other.

“Look, luv. There’s no need for you to worry. You’re not like them. “

Lena tried to think how to best put her feelings into words.

“I don’t know how you do it, but you know what it’s like to be me.”

Shadows were cast across both their faces, but they were feeling each other plenty. Not only from touch, but also from heat and breath. Lena’s voice grew soft and vulnerable with time.

“Ever since you talked about those masks we all wear, I wanted to be with you. Sometimes I just want to be treated like a normal girl, and you were considerate enough to do just that.”

Lena leant down so they would touch each other’s foreheads, gently nudging the side of her nose to Emily’s. The little reporter smiled back with a shy expression.

“I… just wanted you to feel comfortable. Isn’t that what anyone would do?”

As she stared down into those naïve, light brown eyes, Lena couldn’t quite comprehend how pure this girl could be. Lena couldn’t help but bite her lower lip. As she got herself back under control from the cuteness below her, Lena just smiled brightly.

“More absolutely should! You’re special though.”

Emily smiled back. It wasn’t as bright, but the fears in her mind had cleared up. Still, being pressed down like this was a bit uncomfortable.

“You don’t need to hold me down. I’m not going anywhere, anymore...”

“I wouldn’t let you, anyway.”

Lena slowly retracted her arms from pressing Emily’s shoulders down. Then she let herself down to the side of her, hugging the lithe form of her companion instead. The redhead put hers around Lena’s neck in turn.

“That’s kind of abusive, isn’t it?”

“I’m just following hero protocol. There’s a dangerous assassin after you.”

“Awh, right… I almost forgot.”

They were giggling for moment, and then Lena started to finally close the distance.

“Enough small talk now.”

Affectionately, Lena nudged her nose against her lovers. Emily’s heart beat like crescendo in anticipation of the whispered words.

“I meant it, Emi. You’re very special to me. I love you, too.”

Time just seemed to stand still as they grew ever closer.

 

 

* * *

 

 

“What is it with this ‘I love you’ bullshit? “

“M-Many readers want this stuff, you know?”

“Sentimental nonsense…”

Widow had decided to sit down on Sombra’s lap to read. She was facing her, with one of Sombra’s holo screens between them. Now was one of the rare times that she cursed herself for being able to produce them at will. The little hacker had enough time to think about why her ‘friend’ would force this situation. In the end, she concluded that it had to be something between prohibiting her to flee, having an easy position to strangle her to death afterwards or just plainly to make Sombra suffer.

“I mean, this story takes place in what? Two days?”

“When you know that you really, really like someone, does it matter if it’s only two days?”

“For inexperienced schoolgirl’s perhaps.”

“Who do you think is reading these?”

That struck a nerve. Widow gave her the death glare.

“I am reading these.”

"O-Of course there is also a significant mature demographic, haha!"

“But even if that’s true, I would never say that.   _Je’taime,_ if at all. English is a crude language, unfit for romance.”

Amber eyes were looking at her through the holo screen reprobatively.

“Your French is utterly useless by the way.”

“I-I’ll try to improve, promise!”

Widow shook her head and stepped off Sombra’s lap. The Mexican girl didn’t dare to move a muscle, still imprinted in her seat.

“Your writing is atrocious, but the way the story goes is acceptable. Send me the next draft, like we discussed, after you edit that lovey-dovey nonsense out.”

The assassin turned around with disinterest, aiming to leave the room. She was obviously done for today. The door opened and Widow stepped over the monkey that was still lying beyond the doorway.

In the middle of that, she hesitated for a moment, looking back over her shoulder.

“Sombra?”

The small hacker had almost started to relax. Sombra bolted back up with attention.

“Si?!”

“This other author… Miju.”

A condescending smile developed on Widow's lips.

“She’s leagues ahead of you. Maybe you can learn something from her.”

Then she turned to leave. The door closed by itself.

Half a minute went by. Sombra was baffled at first. That emotion changed to resentment, then to white fury. She grabbed something off her table and threw it across the room. It happened to be a mug that shattered nicely, leaving behind tea stains on the metal wall.

“ _Maybe_ I can _learn_ something from _her_?! _¡Eso tiene que ser una broma mala!“_

The hacker stood up, stomping across the room to her closet. Señor Fluffles narrowly hopped out of her way, squeaking, heavily startled. It took Sombra another 2 minutes to get dressed and properly situated with make-up, before she stepped outside, kicking the passed-out gorilla.

“Wake up!”

Hammond quickly lifted his body off the ground, groggily looking around for danger, like an animal that hadn’t meant to be falling asleep in the first place.

“Wha wha wha?! Where’s the smurf?”

Sombra had no patience to defend Widow from insults when Widow didn’t care about Hammond anyway.

“Forget her! We got a few heirs to visit. Get yourself ready!”

The gorilla looked quite surprised, still a bit groggy from his timeout.

“Already? Didn’t we wan’ta wait until…”

Sombra narrowed her eyes, still furious. Hammond was visibly taken aback.

“Change of plans. Get your Doomfist. I want to _break_ things.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

Time seemed to fly by. They had to be just kissing and grinding against each other for half an hour now, with neither quite getting enough of it. They almost managed to hit the same high at the same time, blissfully moaning against each other’s lips.

Soon enough they found themselves side by side in another loose embrace.

_It’s as they say. Communication is everything…_

Emily giggled stupidly. She hadn’t been in a serious relationship before, just dabbling around with friends or acquaintances. Now she was grateful for having that dream, even if the part with Bernstein still gave her the shivers all over.

“So, my greatest fan, huh?”

Her greatest fan blinked a few times.

“O-Oh, I don’t know… just a very enthusiastic fan, I suppose?”

“Okay, a very enthusiastic fan, what did you like about me most? Before I showed you all my qualities in bed, mind you!”

Lena had this curious, giddy look about herself. She didn’t seem like the person for self-aggrandizement, but apparently couldn’t say no to the occasional compliment.

_Oh, you’re so naïve and easy to manipulate! …that’s what Widow would say, wouldn’t she?_

Emily bit her lower lip, holding back a giggle.

_I can’t say that! I need something witty…_

“I always loved your lipstick. Thanks for sharing by the way.”

“D’aww, come on!” Lena rolled her eyes. “You’re not getting out of the question by being cute!”

“Is that so? Okay okay…”

There was a teasing smile on Emily’s lips, before she thought about it more seriously.

“I think… I always admired your determination to carry on. You never gave up, even when you were torn from your space in time. I can’t imagine how it would be to be lost like that.”

Emily visibly pondered for a moment, before she continued.

“To hold onto hope and your outlook on the world through everything… I think that’s admirable. Most would lose themselves to depression. Even without your abilities, you’re a real hero to me, just for carrying on like that.”

At some point during her little explanation, Emily got the inclination to softly run her hand through brunette hair, stroking Lena as if she wanted to reward a puppy for being good. Lena was stunned in the meanwhile. She just looked at Emily, then she started to rapidly blink, wiping away at her eyes as if she wanted to avoid tearing up.

“You okay?”

“Y-Yeah! It’s just… nobody ever told me that. Kinda caught me off guard.”

“Should I get a handkerchief?”

“You enjoy this a bit too much, luv!”

They were both smirking and giggling away before too long, falling back into small kisses. These moments lasted for a while, but there was a nagging thought at the back of her head that Emily had lost focus.

Lena was right. She was enjoying this too much, wasn’t she?

_It’s so nice but… This isn’t what’s supposed to happen._

It became ever so clear in the afterglow. Lena caught on soon enough.

“Still somethin’ on your mind, luv?”

Emily blinked a few times. She caught herself nibbling on her lower lip with some kind of confused concern.

_Shucks, get some control of your emotions Emily!_

“O-Oh, it’s… it’s nothing, haha!”

She tried the most unconvincing laugh in history. It surprisingly didn’t deter her concerned lover.

“Come on, you’re making a face like somebody died.”

“No no, it’s nothing, rea-”

“Wait, what did you say about your boss?”

Lena looked like a lightbulb sprung on above her head. Emily blinked a few times, then she faked a truly concerned look.

_What an easy excuse... I'm off the hook. Lucky!_

“Y-Yeah, that’s it. Mister Bernstein let me go and then… you saw what happened to my flat.”

“He let you go?!”

Emily nodded meekly.

“Because he thinks I couldn’t be objective when it comes to you.”

“Because of me?!”

Emily blinked a few times again. Lena was getting almost as agitated as this was getting weird.

“Uh, I suppose. He found out that I’m a big fan of yours.”

“That wanker!”

Lena suddenly stormed out of the bed and began to assemble her heroes clothing. She also strapped her chronal accelerator back on.

Emily had been quite relieved that this device had a proximity field, so Lena could run around her apartment without the added weight strapped to her chest. That had been an issue of contention among the fanfiction community, with some people insisting that it had to be strapped on at all times and others using smaller versions for non-combat situation. Emily found the way it really was to be the most convenient solution for bedroom snuggling.

Right now, Emily was more concerned with it being strapped on at all.

“Where are you going?”

“To your workplace!”

Emily worked her way to the edge of the bed, now, too and put on her panties.

“Why would you-”

“I’ll show that jerk what’s what!

“But Lena, you can’t just…!”

Before Emily could finish, Lena had already left the bedroom. The reporter was still hurrying to put on some socks in the meanwhile.

“I’ll be home when I talked some sense into that guy! He’ll better give you your job back!”

“Lena, wait!”

Then the front door was slammed shut. Emily struggled to get into Lena’s snug pants (hers were still somewhere in the living room), while a cold rush ran down her spine.

_Oh god, she got it all wrong!_

Emily didn’t bother with further underwear and just threw a random shirt on. The soon-to-be former reporter went out the front door while still awkwardly wrestling with one shoe, struggling to catch up to Lena.

_Mister Bernstein is going to kill me!_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _ami ~ friend_  
>  _Je’taime ~ I love you_  
>  _rôti de lièvre ~ Roast hare_  
>  _¡Eso tiene que ser una broma mala! ~ That has to be a bad joke!_  
>   
>   
>  Well, there it was, the obligatory bedroom chapter! I think that was enough wriggling between the sheets for a while~  
> I know that it's painful for some of us to read Tracer x Emily, but seriously... who among us could resist Lena? ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)  
> Emily's on our side after all. If you squint really hard, dearest reader, you can see a grand payoff on the horizon!
> 
> On a sidenote: I'm taking a whole lot longer to write because I'm all out of proofreaders. If anyone wants to talk about my drafts in Discord on European weekday evenings, please feel free to shoot me a pm!


	8. Expectations and other Delusions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lena visits Emily's boss, Sombra meets an old friend and Angela... well, I'm not gonna spoil that one!

Up until now it was quite the productive day, all things considered. The paramedics that patched him up earlier had wanted for him to go to the hospital, but Nathaniel reassured them that such a measure would not be necessary. Dealing with some headaches was the least of his worries. After all, he couldn’t possibly go on sick leave when they were down a woman, following such an eventful night.

“Speaking of reliability, what devil rode me to make Anderson the vice editor-in-chief again?”

Nathaniel Bernstein grumbled. Another reason why he was still leafing through articles instead of resting in a hospital bed right now. The London riots were too important of a topic for the Evening Standard to leave in somebody else’s hands. Even Martha couldn’t sway him with all the guilty conscience that old woman could inflict. And boy did she try.

Alas, the day was almost done. His clock displayed the time as 6 pm. A bit late for printing day, but such was the life of a journalist. Soon he would go home, drink a cup of earl grey and finish solving the Sudoku puzzle he started this morning. He sighed.

“A day like every other in the end.”

Nathaniel was content, even if his headache told him otherwise. He was about to lay the pen down, when he heard a commotion outside… which was highly unusual, since his room dampened sound.  Whatever it was, the source came rapidly closer.

His door was abruptly kicked in. Splinters flew across the room. Nathaniel blinked a few times, since one particularly large piece of wood narrowly missed his head.

“Bernstein?!”

A comparably young woman with orange spandex pants, a flight jacket, spiky brown hair and a light blue, spinning contraption on her chest was standing amidst his ruined doorway.

“You can’t go in there Missh! Oh no, the good door…”

Martha was pacing around behind the intruder, not sure what to do about this unusual situation. That she had in common with Nathaniel. He decided to go with a practiced, welcoming smile in the end. The editor-in-chief had a visitor, after all.

“That would be me. Good evening, Miss Oxton.”

“Don’t gimme that crap!”

_Feisty._

Unforeseen situations always managed to irritate him greatly. At least he was good at keeping his outside composure.

“I do not intend to offend. How can I help you?”

“You fired Emily this morning because of me! I want you to give her job back, or I’ll wreck your shit!”

A fuming Tracer approached the desk to slam her hands on it for added effect. Nathaniel blinked a few times at the brutish way he was confronted with. In the meanwhile, Martha was picking up pieces from the smashed door off the floor and the other office inhabitants slowly came around to see what all the commotion was about.

“I can assure you, Miss Emily was not fired.”

Now it was on Tracer to blink in confusion behind her orange-tinted pilot goggles.

“But… she said you let her go!”

“That I did. I gave her time off for the day.”

Tracer was looking at him, struggling to keep being angry at something.

“Well, she was crying because you sent her home! You should apologize to her!”

His nasty headache was making things harder, but keeping his cool was key right now. Somebody tried to get through the small crowd of journalists. Nathaniel raised an eyebrow and looked past Tracer to get a better look. It was Miss Emily, looking like she just finished running a marathon. She wore snug jeans and a white T-Shirt with an Overwatch motive. Her socks weren’t matching. That was about the entire context Nathaniel needed.

“Miss Emily? Could you enter my office, please?”

Emily and Lena flinched in unison.

“A-At once Mister Bernstein!”

The red-haired and red-faced reporter carefully stepped through the doorway, past a scrambling Martha who was still lamenting about the poor door.

“I am s-so sorry Mister Bernstein! This is a misunder-oh god, what happened to you, sir?!”

She was doubtlessly speaking of the bandages around his head and nose. Nathaniel knew that he must have been looking horrible, with hair sticking out between the fabric and several bruises showing around the edges. He didn’t mind so much. On the contrary, he was pleasantly surprised to be treated with respect by at least one person in the office today. He could always count on Emily for that.

“A certain individual called ‘Widowmaker’ came in here to ask for your whereabouts. She wasn’t amused by my attempts to resist.”

He could watch their faces fall. It was a delightful sight. 

“Mister Bernstein, I’m so-“

Nathaniel held up a hand to interrupt Emily.

“No need to grovel for something you had no control over. I am just relieved that no ill fate has befallen my most creative reporter. Still, Miss Oxton was so kind to inform me that my decision this morning put you under emotional strain. I feel compelled to apologize profoundly.”

Both women seemed to be stunned by the turn of events. Nathaniel took a tiny bit of pleasure in that.

“G-Great! There, you see: No need to worry anymore, Emi, haha! We should go home now. Thank you, Mister Bernstein!”

Tracer suddenly looked _very_ uncomfortable and tried to usher a uselessly stammering Emily out of his office. That, of course, wouldn't do. Nathaniel had already decided to use this situation.

“One moment please.”

Tracer froze.

“There is still the matter… of the door.”

The remains of said piece of wood were dangling pathetically from one hinge to the side of the hero.

“O-Oh, yeah, that one… sorry about that! I’ll pay for it. Can’t be more than a couple hundred quid, right?”

Nathaniel smiled with mild bemusement.

“That was exotic wood from the sequoia tree, hand-carved and imported out of North America. My late father bought it back in the day for the small sum of 2300 US dollars.”

The color drained from both of them. Martha’s lamentations made a whole lot of sense now.

“That’s… a lot of dosh.”

He gave them a moment for the situation to sink in.

“I am sure we can come to an understanding.”

Nathaniel took Lena Oxton for the kind of person that wouldn’t have any significant amount of money liquid at any given time. Judging by her reaction, that impression seemed to be about right. A predatory smile, common to executives of his kind, found its way on his lips. Only Emily seemed to notice his sinister intent, but didn’t dare to intervene.

“We can?”

Tracer looked towards him with a faint sense of hope. Nathaniel loved these games sometimes.

“Of course. We would be _very_ interested in an exclusive interview with you.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

Lena closed the crumbling door as best as she could behind her. Mister Bernstein still wanted to talk to Emily, so she was stuck here.

Of course, Lena had agreed to the bargain. She wasn’t very good with money and that door would plummet her into debt for a few months. It was not like her meager pay would get her out of this. She didn’t even have savings!

_Angela is going to kill me…_

Giving an interview was a gamble. The modified Petras Act did allow Overwatch to operate in a constrained environment, with the express permission of local governments, but any misstep in the public eye could be fatal.

_It’s not like I can get out of this cock up any other way. Juuust brilliant._

It was at this point that Lena noticed all the people staring at her. There was a small crowd of seven journalists who survived this late into the evening. For people who photographed celebrities for a living, they looked weirdly star-struck.

“Uhh, hi?”

A tall, ridiculously handsome person cleared his throat in response.

“Come on guys; let’s not make the lady uncomfortable. Back to your offices now.”

The crowd dispersed with hesitation, until only mister handsome was left. There was the old lady, too, since her workplace was just there behind an old-fashioned counter. Mister handsome approached to shake hands.

“Sorry about the tumult. Name’s Thorvald Anderson”

Lena took the hand. Thorvald seemed friendly enough.

“Are you Scandinavian? That’s an awesome name if I ever heard one!”

“My mother thought so, too. She’s from Norway, my father was a Scot.”

“Colorful heritage! I guess you know who I am?”

“That much is obvious, heh.”

“So… you sent your co-workers away just to talk to me?”

Thorvald took a second before he understood. His face slowly lit up.

_Not the brightest tool in the shed._

“Oh, it’s not like that! I’m Nathan’s substitute”

“Nathan?”

“The workaholic you just talked to.”

Lena half-nodded in recognition.

“Oh. Yeah, what’s up with that guy?”

“He’s just in love with the newspaper. Okay guy once you get past his stuck-up attitude.”

Martha cackled in the background while Thorvald continued.

“And while he’s busy, I guess celebrities like you are my responsibility or something like that. Want some coffee while you wait for your girlfriend?”

“Why not, I’m kinda wasted after that one… with milk and sugar, please.”

“Sure thing.”

Anderson led a visibly tired Lena down the hall to the office kitchen. She leant against the counter in there and waited for mister handsome to operate the coffee machine. Then she finally noticed something about their conversation.

“Wait, what did ya say?”

“Uh, sure thing?”

“No, before that!”

“Want a coffee while you wait for Emi?”

Somehow, she was insanely jealous to hear that nickname spoken by someone else.

“No! No. You said girlfriend.”

Thorvald finished her coffee and handed it over with a sly grin.

“It’s kinda obvious the way she came in after you. Even if it wasn’t in the news all over the internet.”

"Wait... all over..."

"Yeah, practically every outlet has a story going."

Lena’s jaw dropped. She had expected something like this, but not so soon.

“What the fuck?!”

 

 

* * *

 

 

_ At roughly the same time, somewhere in England, in a ventilation shaft **.** _

The screen in front of her showed an article featured on a gossip news site. The title was glaring at her in bold letters.

**_“Overwatch mascot Tracer caught being intimate with hot redhead reporter girl after London riots!”_ **

The article went on to comment on several angles of camera shots. Some of them showed Emily crying and Tracer trying to console her. Most however focused on them laughing and hugging.

_“Just a friendly reminder that our favorite heroine is actually a lesbian! Here the two lovebirds enter Tracer’s London apartment. We can all guess what’s going on in there! Sorry girls, but it seems this one is taken.”_

If Sombra wasn’t furious before, this was it. She was balling her hand laden with hacking hardware to a fist.

“How did they get that footage?!”

Her eyes scanned over the page extensively, trying to think of a way in which this footage could’ve gotten out.

“Shhh! They’ll hear us, stupid human!”

Sombra tore at her hair in frustration. Hammond looked at her like she lost her mind. They were traveling through a ventilation system for some time now and Sombra’s hissing was going on his nerves. He had a point, too, unbeknownst to the two of them.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Simon was doing the usual rounds. He hated his job. Nothing ever happened anyway and his uniform was itching today. As he was scratching one of those itches, patrolling down the corridors of the mansion, he heard something.

“What... you… care?!”

“…fuckin’ humans… irritating!”

The voices and something sounding like shuffling seemed to be coming from above. He scratched his head and looked at the ceiling. There was some metal stuff up there. Simon never quite understood what that was for.

“Is someone in there?”

All the weird sounds abruptly stopped.

“Hello?”

“Great! …heard us!”

“Sounds… an idiot… if… ask me.”

Simon blinked a few times. The voices were actually insulting him!

“Hey! I’m not an idiot! Come down here or I’ll-“

The floor of the ventilation shaft was re-purposed as a projectile, that battered the guard below to death with the added weight of two Talon agents. A small dust cloud erupted from the impact.

“Jesus Hammond, you didn’t need to do that… Yuck, I think you flattened him dead.”

“He wanted for us to come down!”

“The noise was loud enough to wake Reaper during siesta...”

“I guess our cover is _blown_ then, heh.”

Sombra rolled her eyes.                                                                                          

“Don’t try to be funny, it’s not working. Seriously though, we could’ve interrogated that guy.”

Frantic footsteps could be heard to either side of the corridor. Soon enough, they were confronted by armed guards on each side.

“We got you surrounded!”

Hammond laughed hysterically.

“Yeah, you poor basterds! We got yous right where we want ya!”

Sombra sighed while disabling the safety on her sub-machine gun.

“Great… Remember to leave one alive this time, Hammond. We have to ask nicely where they hid their precious prince.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

It turned dark outside. Angela was cooking in the kitchen, wearing a loose, white T-Shirt with one shoulder popping out and comfy-looking blue pants. The doorbell rang, like it always did at this time of day. At least on days without any missions.

She turned to open the door. Unsurprisingly, Fareeha was standing beyond. She wore the usual: A black, skintight shirt with a bit of belly exposure and dark blue jeans. The Egyptian girl had a yellow rose in hand. Angela’s favorite. The doctor flashed a loving smile, went in for a small kiss and relieved Fareeha of the flower. Then she turned back to her cooking. No time to admire her young lover’s awestruck expression today.

“You got a key, _Süßes_. You could use it, you know?”

“I-I wouldn’t want to intrude.”

Angela put the rose into the vase with the others and rolled her sky-blue eyes. The door closed in the meanwhile.

“You are not intruding. We’re doing this for three months now.”

Fareeha seemed to have no answer for that. Angela grabbed a saltshaker to start flavoring, when she felt a pair of hands around her waist. A trained body leaned in against her back.

“Oho, are we eager today?”

“Maybe… ever since you left me in that elevator. I couldn’t think of anything but you…”

There was a smirk on the doctor’s lips.

_Still got it._

It did wonders for her self-esteem to be fawned over by such a young bombshell. She felt Fareeha’s face buried against her neck, showering it with kisses.

 “You’re so sweet.”

It wasn’t forceful in the least, but still diverted attention away from her cooking. The Swiss woman wriggled her way around and involved her lover in a slightly longer kiss to satisfy some of those urges she must’ve evoked today. Fareeha’s hands slid under her shirt in the meanwhile and caressed her back. If there weren’t a set of hotplates behind the doctor, she would’ve totally lifted her on top, too.

Instead, Angela firmly put a stop to their fraternizing.

“That’s enough for now. You’ll have to wait for your dessert.”

Her eager lover bit her lower lip, having trouble letting go, but finally did so. Angela was still smirking, throwing a wink and turned back around to make sure that dinner was turning out right.

“What are you making today?”

“Some saffron risotto. Can you pour some red wine for us? There's an open bottle in the fridge.”

“Sure!”

Some time passed before dinner was ready. Angela found that she couldn’t get rid of her smirk.

_She’s always so eager… I feel like a princess._

The taste test was positive, maybe a bit too much salt, but that only meant that the cook was in love if you believed old German proverbs. Angela turned around with two plates in her hand to find Fareeha browsing on her phone.

"Anything interesting on there?"

“Angie, there’s… articles about Lena all over the place.”

“Well, that’s nothing new. What do they say?”

“It says: ‘London hero Tracer caught making out with reporter.’ There’s a lot of pictures of her and that Emily girl you told me about yesterday.”

One blond eyebrow was lifted as high up as possible. Angela leaned over to look at the pictures in the article. All of them seemed to be shot from a peculiar distance. The doctor was in disbelief.

“She didn’t…”

“I guess Lena did. That girl looks really pretty.”

Fareeha realized too late that she had fucked up. Angela gave her the death stare.

“N-Not in any way as pretty as you are, my angel!”

The doctor rolled with her sky-blue eyes. Instead of dignifying Fareeha with an answer, she leant over to press a button on the smartphone.

_“How can I help, captain Amari?”_

“ATHENA, analyze photos in the article. Find out what took them.”

_“At once, doctor Ziegler. Analyzing.”_

Fareeha looked at her with a puzzled expression.

“What for…?”

Angela sighed and deigned to answer her confused girl.

“Emily is a reporter for the Evening Standard. She has a camera bot. Back then she didn’t seem like the type, but in theory she could’ve sold those pictures to the tabloids for a nice profit.”

The thought made Fareeha grimace a bit, even if she didn’t care that much.

“If that’s true, that’s kind of a dick move.”

_“Analysis complete. Pictures taken by CA1 unit 00005869A, made by Volskaya Industries Consumer Electronics.”_

“Who owns that unit, ATHENA?”

_“Registered owner: Emily [REDACTED].”_

For a moment, there was a heavy silence in the room. Angela’s lips grew dangerously thin before she burst into a tirade.

“Did you hear that? How can she do that to sweet Lena?! I want to track that treacherous, lying broad down and slap some sense into her!”

It was obvious to Fareeha that her girlfriend was on the edge. Everyone in Overwatch knew that a fuming Mercy was about the worst thing that could happen to your day.

For Fareeha in particular, since she was about to miss out on dessert. She grimaced.

“Yeah that’s… horrible.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

Emily tried to steady herself. The world was reeling around her, still.

“Sit down, Miss Emily.”

Since that would certainly help, she did. Her cheeks were still burning from having all the attention of her co-workers during that ridiculous scene. Being stuck in these mismatched clothes and being out of breath from running all the way here didn’t help.

“I’m… sorry about Widowmaker, Mister Bernstein. I think I drew her ire by helping Lena.”

“Everything is perfectly fine, given that you managed to lure Tracer here. Well done.”

Emily blinked a few times to make sure she understood him correctly.

“I didn’t-“

“Of course you didn’t.”

Mister Bernstein had a certain aura about him that made it more than clear when a topic was over.

“You will conduct the interview with Tracer at your leisure. That much you earned. I trust you will not disappoint me in this?”

Emily went as straight as a candle, thoroughly surprised yet professional as can be.

“No sir!”

“Good. If you stay true to your word, we may discuss your next raise earlier than anticipated.”

Emily was practically beaming like a small sun from that. She could finally show Mister Bernstein just how serious she was about working at the Evening Standard.

"Thank you for this opportunity!"

“Now, may you explain to me why you sold picture evidence of your new relationship to corporate tabloids?”

“I did what?”

Her eyes widened at the accusation. She didn’t really understand at first, but then he showed her, on one of his holo screens behind his back. Emily instantly cringed. It was an article from ‘The Sun’, best known for their shit journalism.

_‘Shocking! Evening Standard reporter seduces beloved hero!’_

That needed to sink in for a moment. There were pictures below of Lena and her in compromising situations.

“We all know that this is the least of reputable sources, but they’re one of the outlets running this story. It doesn’t exactly reflect well on us.”

“Sir, I didn’t take those photos!”

“You didn’t, Cassie did.”

“What? How?!”

Emily was at a loss for words.

“I was under the impression that you orchestrated this. Apparently, I was wrong.”

She stared at him for half an eternity. Her little camera bot was ‘sleeping’ in Lena’s apartment right now, plugged into one of the living room power outlets. She frantically tried to think of who could’ve done this.

Then she knew.

“Sir, Widowmaker destroyed my smartphone. I need to call someone.”

She couldn’t think of a better way to advance the plot.

“I still got your work phone. You never wanted the ones we give out to our employees.”

“I despise Apple products, sir.”

They made a strategic pause for effect.

“Careful Miss Emily, you’re making a lot of enemies with statements like that.”

Bernstein reached into one of his desk drawers and handed her a white piece of overpriced garbage.

 

 

* * *

 

 

“What is this crap?”

Lena stared at a headline displayed on Thorvald’s smartphone.

**_“Overwatch hero spends London riots fooling around with reporter girl!”_ **

There were rather intimate pictures beneath the headline. The author seemed to have a fun time writing the article, alluring as to what Emily and Tracer might have done afterwards.

“As I said, it’s all over the internet. I thought you knew, to be honest.”

He was looking at her with an apologetic smile as Lena tried to sort things out in her mind. One of her hands was frantically rubbing her forehead.

“All over… god, my colleagues will tease me to no end! Wait, how should I know?”

“The boss told me that the shots came from Emi’s camera robot. Hasn’t she told – oh.”

Thorvald abruptly stopped talking as he realized his faux pas. Somehow, he tried to smile it away, to no avail. Lena already felt deeply disturbed. She heard Angela’s voice in her mind.

_I warned you this might happen._

Lena quickly shook her head.

“No no no, this can’t be. It has to be a mistake. Emily wouldn’t do that!”

Thorvald seemed to agree at least, scratching the back of his head all the while.

“She sure never seemed to be the type to pull something like that. However, the data is quite precise on that part. Cassy is the culprit.”

“Cassy?”

“Oh, that’s the name of Emi’s camera bot.”

Lena was overwhelmed by a fuzzy smile.

“That’s adorable!”

“Heh, yeah, just a bit creepy always making faces on that little screen. Still, that thing is kinda responsible.”

Her smile slowly downgraded to a frown. Lena leant back on the kitchen counter, put some sugar into her coffee and began stirring.

“Maybe… it got hacked?”

Thorvald shook his handsome head, holding back a yawn.

“Unlikely, I think. Volskaya tends to fight AI, so they’re big into intrusion prevention.”

“Huh… and how did she get it? Maybe someone tampered with Cassy.”

The vice editor-in-chief had to think for a moment there, as if he was trying to avoid a certain topic. In the end, he chose his words very carefully after sipping on his own coffee for a while.

“Cassy was a present from her family. They gave it to her when she started to work here. They’re trustworthy people, normally.”

Lena’s frown deepened. She didn’t want to come to this conclusion, but it seemed inevitable. Every option seemed unlikely…

_…apart from Emily being responsible._

They stood there in silence for a moment. While sipping on her coffee, Lena kept mulling all of this around in her head. It was annoying. Everything was annoying! She wanted to be done with this topic, to confront Emily and have her put that annoying, doubt-ridden mind at ease.

“So, uh...”

Just as Thorvald tried to start a conversation again, Lena heard Emily down the corridor. Without hesitation, the poor guy was left hanging. Lena quickly put her coffee on the counter and hurried towards the noise.

Emily seemed to be talking through one of those devices that people bought when they suffered from too many insecurities and clearly needed to compensate.

“…had a hand in this, didn’t you?”

She only saw her girlfriend from the side. As she approached, Lena had a hard time keeping a sudden rush of anger down. The hunch of being betrayed frustrated her enough to want to throw accusations around.

“Emily!”

Garnering her attention, their gazes met, with the redhead still listening to the phone. Lena all of the sudden stopped in her tracks, almost taking a step back as her fleeting anger evaporated.

_She… she’s seething!_

Emily had one fist balled as if she barely had herself under control. Her face was practically screaming ‘This isn’t fair!’ Emily even bit her lower lip so hard, it might almost break a tiny bit of skin.

“You know exactly what I mean, auntie!”

Her voice was so high, nobody possibly could’ve taken her seriously. Lena blushed furiously as she listened to her girlfriends livid squeaking.

_How does she manage to look this cute while being angry?!_

Auntie was apparently doing the talking in another long pause.

“Emi, Is this about the pictures…?”

The angry redhead just glared at Lena and took that shitty phone from her ear to push a button. A pompous, feminine voice erupted from the loudspeakers.

_“…only the best for you! I can almost imagine how glad your father must be right now.”_

“Don’t you dare to bring father into this! Did you use Cassy or not?”

_“Why, how could I possibly let such a prime opportunity pass? Look at you, catching such a juicy fish!”_

“But why would you do that?!”

_“It always was our intention to give you a little push back into the spotlight, silly. It’s no good that you are wasting away in that newspaper office of yours.”_

They were staring at each other. Lena felt awake and sober all of the sudden. She was feeling really, really bad to have doubted Emily for even a second.

“I can do without, auntie Charlotte. I'm happy the way it is! Stop interfering in my life!”

_“Don’t be like that, sweetie. The earlier you recognize your duties, the better for all of-“_

Emily hung up the call with as much force as her index finger could muster. Her anger kind of reminded Lena of a baby elephant having a tantrum, but that was fleeting. The little reporter kind of fell in on herself, shoulders dropping from exhaustion.

Lena felt compelled to step in and hold Emily tight, pulling her into a hug. The exhausted girl just accepted the gesture and buried her head against Lena’s neck.

 

 

* * *

 

 

A great oak double-winged door barred their way. Illustrations of chivalrous heroism's featuring kings and their armies were masterfully carved into the wood.

“That it?”

Hammond had been dragging a badly bruised guard along. He was missing several teeth and his face was already swollen so much, that the poor guy could barely see. He nodded eagerly.

“Alright. Pleasure doing business, pal.”

With a casual swing, he threw the guard along the corridor.

“ _Mierda santa._ I think I’ve never seen a fancier door in my life.”

“What’s with humans and stupidly expensive doors? It’s just a damn swinging piece o’ wood.”

Sombra waited for Hammond to open the door for her. That thing looked heavy, and she brought him as her muscle anyway.  The grumbling gorilla laid hands on both handles at the same time and pushed them open. The dimly lit corridor was brightly illuminated all of the sudden. Both of them tried to shield their eyes with their arms from a pair of floodlights, aimed directly at them.

_¡Maldita sea!_

A silhouette stood between the sources of light, making a distinctive pose. Sombra recognized it, even though her eyes were plagued by colorful dots from being blinded.

“It’s a trap!”

She grabbed one of her translocators and threw it high into the air as fast as she could.

**_“DRAW!”_ **

Milliseconds before the bullet would’ve pierced her skull, Sombra vanished from her original position. Hammond didn’t have that luxury. Prompted by her partners cry, the great ape shielded himself with the doomfist, absorbing a bullet that would've splattered his brains into the corridor. Hammond almost lost his balance.

The silhouette wouldn’t let up.

Whoever it was continuously shot at Hammond while advancing, keeping him on the defense, each bullet forcing him back a bit further into the corridor. After four shots, the aggressor engaged closer with a combat roll and unloaded a completely new magazine up close, aimed at the body of the gorilla. Hammond had a hard time keeping up, grunting as he shielded himself.

A cybernetic fist exploited the opening forced by the barrage of bullets, slamming into the great apes face with a sickening crunch. Hammond reeled back into the corridor, colliding with the wall and ultimately collapsing.

With the gorilla out cold, McCree turned around. The floodlights had mysteriously stopped working in between all of that, leaving the fancy tearoom in the dim light of a cloudy, autumn evening outside.

“I know you’re here, darlin’.”

There was no need to rush anymore. McCree slowly entered the room again under the clinking of the spurs on his boots and reloaded his revolver.

“Neat setup, really... who told you we were coming?”

The cowboy rolled the cigarette around in his mouth. He whirled around to the direction of her voice, but there was nothing but large bookcases and a corner to sit for a leisurely game of chess.

“Don’t make this harder than it needs to be, lass.”´

Suddenly, he felt something cold against the side of his head. He could see Sombra materializing to his left, with her colorful sub-machine gun pressed to his temple.

_Aww, dang it._

“A lady asked you a question. You won’t just ignore her, right? Who told you we were coming?”

McCree rolled the cigar with his mouth again.

“Had a hunch.”

Sombra looked at him for a moment there, severely unimpressed.

“I should shoot you for that answer alone, Jesse.”

“You know I still owe you a drink though, Sommy.”

“Would be a real shame, I agree. Enough small talk now, we’re both on the job. Drop it already.”

The cowboy chuckled.

“Sorry lass. You’re not my type.”

“I’m not talking about your pants, _zopenco_.”

Satisfied with the little quip, he went down to drop his revolver, then back up. Jesse wasn’t some idiot who would throw a loaded weapon only for it to accidentally go off.

Then Sombra used her submachine gun to vigorously hit him in the head.

“OW! What was that for?”

“You tried to put a bullet in my head, damnit!”

She hit him again.

“Jesus-OW! Well, yeah, the hell do I know who comes through that door?!”

“Maybe check next time who you’re attempting to kill! You owe me a whole lotta drinks now, _cabrón!_ ”

With him sufficiently unconscious aided by a few more hits to the head, Sombra started to tie Jesse’s arms behind his back as tight as possible. Then she sat him down against one of the bookcases.

She looked around, dusting herself off from the brief action. Another fancy door was leading to a backroom.

_There’s my prize._

No further time would be wasted. She pushed the doors open and stepped into a similarly furnished room to the last. A lot of bookcases with ancient looking tomes, vitrines with antiquities and in the middle of it all a fine mahogany desk. The room was partly lit by electric light, as opposed to the last.

A man in his late sixties was sitting at the desk in an elaborate chair. He had a grey, well-maintained full beard and wore a black suit with a white shirt, unbuttoned at the top.

Sombra approached the desk, making a mock bow.

“Your majesty. Thank you for the hospitality.”

The man behind the desk wasn’t impressed. His voice resounded in a deep baritone.

“If you have come to kill me, be done with it.”

Recovering from her mock bow, Sombra flashed him a teasing smirk.

“Oh, no, no. No such brutality. I prefer to establish… connections. Provided that you’re willing to parlay?”

“Seeing as you criminals took out my household guard, I don’t seem to have much of a choice.”

She stepped towards the desk and began encircling it.

“No, you really don’t. And what I have to offer is much, much more preferable to being killed.”

“What exactly does Talon want?”

Sombra stopped to the side of the man and leant on the elaborate chair he was sitting on. He observed her through the corner of his eyes.

“You see, George, it’s just a small favor I desire. In exchange…”

She conjured a holo-screen in front of the man. He soon realized how ruthless and inhumane Sombra could be, if it came to achieving her goals.

"How did you..."

“…I won’t share this internet history of yours with your wife. There are some interesting fetishes in there. You didn't think incognito mode would help against professionals like me, did you?”

His face changed to an expression of grave seriousness.

“Only a true monster would do this to a man."

George thought about it for a moment, then he relented. Too much was at stake.

"Tell me of this favor you need.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

They made their way home walking side by side. Both of them were exhausted from the events of the evening, mentally and physically. They hadn’t talked since Emily hung up on the phone. Just a few more blocks to get home. Lena couldn’t really find the right moment, but the silence bothered her too much at some point, so she just started talking.

“Emi, uh... I’m... sorry that I just kinda took off earlier.”

Lena rubbed the back of her head and kept a straight gaze ahead. She could see her girlfriend skulking along her side. It didn’t look like the redhead intended to answer.

“I hope that your boss wasn’t too hard on you after that, haha…hah…”

She kept looking over to Emily, who was nothing short of depressed.

“He wasn’t… it’s okay.”

“Great! So... don’t worry about those articles! We would’ve been found out eventually, haha!”

Emil's mood didn't change. She just bit her lower lip in shame on top of the depression from before.

_Bollocks, didn’t work._

“Come on, please don’t stay like that… Why... why are you so sad?”

Emily tried to gather her thoughts, looking away. The weather was fitting her mood pretty well, being all grey and gloomy.

“I’m just… sorry that I’ve got you involved in my family mess.”

“That’s perfectly fine, Emi. No harm, no foul, promise. Maybe I can talk to your aunt about-”

“No!”

Lena was startled by the sudden interruption. Emily’s light brown eyes were staring at her with a mix of repulsion and pleading.

“I want _nothing_ to do with my family! Please don’t… please let’s just not talk about it.”

They had stopped on the roadside in the meanwhile. Luckily, not a lot of people were populating the streets right now. Lena opened her mouth and closed it again like some kind of goldfish. Finally, she nodded, came a bit closer and took Emily by the waist with one arm.

“If you don’t want to, we don’t need to, luv.”

Emily was visibly relieved to hear those words. Lena gave her a little tug and Emily obeyed, leaning in against her girlfriend.

“Thank you. Let’s... just go home.”

“Great idea! Little Emi must be tired as all heck.”

Lena squeezed her girlfriend’s waist as they started to walk down the avenue again. She giggled a little and Emily almost smiled.

“You’re way more tired than I am, aren't you? Tracer has just gotten really good at hiding it, being a hero and all."

Lena stiffened a bit.

 _How does she…?!_  

Emily giggled and took that as confirmation.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

Several blocks later, they finally turned the last corner to Lena’s apartment. A brown-skinned girl was standing right there, looking in the same direction.

“Pharah! What are ya doing here?”

The Egyptian didn’t turn to them. Instead, she was almost apathetically standing there, as if she wasn’t really sure what she was supposed to do.

“I wanted to make sure that Angie doesn’t do anything stupid, but… I kinda failed.”

“Mum is here?”

Fareeha nodded ahead. The two of them joined her in being astonished what Mercy had accomplished.

It looked like a bloodbath. Broken devices and fizzling robots were strewn about the place. There was a mountain of beaten up journalists and paparazzi’s, with Mercy standing on top of them, heaving and seething with anger. They must’ve been lurking in front of Lena’s apartment before they arrived.

“She looks livid!”

“That’s an understatement.”

“So… she beat up a bunch of civilians?”

“I tried to stop her, but then she just decked me, too.”

“Ouch.”

The goddess of hatred and anger finally turned around to see the newcomers. All of their neck hairs stood up simultaneously.

**“YOU!”**

The second it took Lena to figure out what was going on, Emily went pale and squeaked like a startled mouse. As that holy avatar of vengeance was rapidly advancing towards them, Emily desperately tried to hide behind her girlfriend.

**“How could you betray us?!”**

Emily squeaked louder. They were both trembling.

“P-Please calm down, Mom!”

**“I will never forgive-“**

“It was her aunt! Her aunt!”

Lena was squeaking, too, now. In fact, they were both kinda trying to hide each other? Angela blinked as she towered over them.

“Oh. Uh. Okay then.”

Angela seemed to come back to her senses. She looked around, seeing the battlefield and scratched the back of her head.

_“Meine Güte. War ich das?”_

Her gaze continued to wander.

“Oh my, were you hit by someone _Liebling_?”

„I tried to stop you, but that didn’t work out too well.”

The doctor blinked a few times, as if she could barely believe that. 

“I’ll… have to look at that later. Shall we go up for a drink? I could _really_ use a drink.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Süßes ~ Sweetie_  
>  _cabrón ~ dumbass_  
>  _Liebling ~ darling_  
>  _zopenco ~ dunce_  
>  _Maldita sea ~ damnit_  
>  _Mierda santa ~ Holy shit_  
>  _Meine Güte. War ich das? ~ Oh my. Was that me?_  
>   
>  No Widowmaker this chapter, but she'll return in the next one. Promise!  
> I'm publishing this chapter at 2 am in the night, laboring hard to bring this to you, dearest reader!  
> Now I'm tired. I'll go to sleep and hope to wake up to some neat comments in the morning. Good night. (´ڡ`)


	9. Really? You’re doing that off-screen?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The crew gets shitfaced, Widow gets a stern talking to by daddy Reaper and Sombra gets to enjoy a relaxing vacation!

“…and then she threw that one ‘Sun’ reporter to the ground with some sick judo move, even though that guy was easily twice her weight.”

Fareeha was in the middle of non-chalantly recounting the turn of events that happened just a few minutes prior to Emily. The redhead was intently listening, nodding here and there, clearly impressed. She even took some notes, probably for her next story.

“Would you stop it already…”

Angela on the other hand seemed to be about ready to sink into the floor, looking to the side with slightly blushing cheeks.

“So then one of those ‘Daily Mirror’ paparazzi’s tries to flee, but Angie kicks him square in the groin before he can manage to-“

Lena interrupted.

“Girls! Hana’s coming over. She’ll pick up some pizza on the way! You gals want anything?”

The little Brit had been pacing around, talking on the phone for quite some time while the rest of them sat at the dinner table in Lena’s small apartment. They were drinking Baileys with Belgian chocolate flavor while discussing this and that.

Fareeha and Angela looked at each other for a moment, but Emily took the initiative.

“I’ll take a medium sized one with salami and champignons!”

“We already had dinner, but we could share a turkey breast salad. Right, _Liebling_?”

Fareeha’s mouth opened and closed. In the end, she just nodded under her girlfriend’s scrutiny.

_It’s so painfully obvious who’s in charge in their relationship…_

Emily almost giggled.

“Okay! You heard that, Hana?”

Lena wandered off again, recounting the order to the Korean girl on the other side of the call. Emily found herself excited to meet even more Overwatch agents after already meeting Pharah today. She had properly introduced herself earlier and seemed to be a really nice girl.

Right now, Angela was scolding Pharah about telling all those embarrassing details to her. Emily would’ve never guessed how their relationship looked like. Then again, even though it was massively popular, she never was a fan of Pharmercy fanfiction. The whole concept struck her as merely nice to look at, but ultimately too easy of a ship.

_Turns out I was right. I mean, they really are a couple! Where’s the fiction in that?_

Emily tried to write something about them, but it hadn’t been fun to ship a couple without any inherent friction. She watched them for a while before Lena finally returned, sitting down beside her. Emily felt a hand on her leg, caressing it intimately as Lena went for her own glass of Baileys. The squabble on the other side of the table seemed to have stopped, as Angela threw in a question.

“So, what happened this morning? I heard from our dear Genji that nobody got hurt, even though Widowmaker was involved.”

The doctor sounded biased in the way that she couldn’t believe such an encounter was possible. Emily found herself strangely ticked off by that attitude while Lena apparently needed to down another glass before she saw herself capable of properly answering that question.

“The long and short of it? Widow forced herself on Emily over there to fuck with my head.”

Their guest’s eyes got a lot bigger. The couple looked at each other in awe and downed their glasses, too, in quick succession. As Fareeha poured more for them, Angela continued.

“That’s… highly unusual. There is always an assassination when Widowmaker works alone.”

“Well, not this time. Just some run-o-the-mill sadism, heh!”

Lena sounded a bit self-deprecating there and Emily didn’t like that. She brought her chair closer and laid an arm around her girlfriend, earning a thankful look.

Fareeha seemed to be confused.

“But that doesn’t fit. She’s only supposed to feel emotion when she kills someone, right?”

“It could simply be that a loophole emerged in the conditioning. Maybe Widowmaker began to feel things in regard to Lena and her surroundings, since dear Lena clashes with her a lot when she happens to be killing people.”

“That makes sense I guess? Associating good feelings with Tracer.”

Lena laughed bitterly at the dialogue on the other side of the table.

“So then she comes along and decides to torture me for fun? Good feelings my arse!”

She rolled her eyes and downed another glass. The Baileys was empty by now, so the host left the side of her girlfriend on the search for something else to drown in. Emily just started talking with a loose tongue, thanks to the alcohol.

“Widow does beat you one on one every time, though, in a sense that she never fails an assassination. That’s what she loves about you. When she got nothing to kill, she probably craves to best you in any way she can.”

_Even if that means just reading about it._

She didn’t quite realize at first, but the three of them looked at her with a mix of surprise and confusion. Partly because Emily hadn’t really participated in any discussion before. The redhead blinked a few times and felt her cheeks grow hot.

_Crap, I didn’t think! I just blurted that one out, didn’t I?_

Her eyes darted around between them. Emily made a small, nervous laugh in an attempt to diffuse the situation.

“T-That’s just a theory though, haha! A really stupid one, probably nothing…”

Lena had found a bottle of Plymouth Gin and poured herself a glass. She stared at Emily for a long time. Then she downed her glass and poured another.

The others would’ve probably been reluctant to drink gin on a workday, but this evening was special in a bad sense.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Used pizza cartons were piling in the garbage bin some ways away. Multiple empty bottles of Baileys, Plymouth Gin, Bacardi rum and cola stood in the middle of the dinner table. One more bottle with the label ‘Nut-Nougat Vodka’ was about halfway done. Lena told them it was a gift from Zarya and insisted that the stuff tasted surprisingly good. Emily had to concur, even if her sense of taste had probably degraded somewhere between her last Baileys and second rum-cola.

“Sho, I told ‘im to get shtuffed and give Emily her damn job back, darnit! It turned out…”

Lena was in the middle of colorfully recounting her heroic tale in the offices of the Evening Standard. The couple on the other side of the table listened intently, with Fareeha nodding away at one point or another and Angela consistently waking her back up again. Hana was sitting at the far end of the table, wearing blue jeans and one of the pink bunny t-shirts she sold as merchandise on the side. She was watching, too, but seemed to be immensely annoyed at something while brooding over her glass of vodka.

“But… I kinda wrecked that Shoki… Shokwoi… Sho… fancy wood door to his offish. That thing cosht a fortune!”

Fareeha blinked a couple of times, as if she needed to readjust her sight.

“How…”, the Egyptian yawned in between her words, “…did you get out of that one?”

“Mishter fancy pants offered to lemme do an interview inshtead of payin’!”

“So, you agreed to do ze interview? No vay!”

Angela seemed to slightly slur her speech and fall back into German pronunciation when she was getting drunk. Other than that, she seemed to be at full attention, as expected of a doctor.

“Yesh! Emi is going to ashk me shome queshtshnsh… hic! Aren’tya, lovely?”

Lena was grinning over both ears, leaning onto the redheaded reporter, giving her a sideways look full of innuendo. Emily just sipped on her vodka and looked mightily uncomfortable at the prospect. Then, suddenly, something roared incredibly loud.

“GRARGH! I can’t STAND it anymore!”

Emily spat out her vodka, soaking Fareeha in it who perked up herself from another little nap. All of them looked to Hana, who seemed to be altering between being angry and sad.

“Wat iz ze matter, Hana?”

“You all make me SICK being lovey-dovey like this while I have to sit here alone!”

There was a moment of absolute silence. Finally, Lena cracked up.

“You want a girlfriend!”

“W-What if I do?!”

Angela already giggled along.

“Wouldn’t a nice boy do, too?”

Hana’s head turned red as a beet as the table erupted with stupid laughter. A mix of drunken embarrassment and anger was fighting over control within the small Korean before she ultimately stood up and stormed into the bathroom, slamming the door behind her.

The four of them took a minute to calm down from that little episode. In the end, Fareeha and Angela excused themselves. Although it was more like Angela excusing them, since Fareeha seemed to barely manage to stay awake. The two of them departed soon after, leaving the two hosts with an angry Korean in their bathroom. They stood in front of it, not sure what to do.

“So…”

“Yeah.”

Finally, Emily had a particularly stupid idea while leaning against her girlfriend. This would be an excellent opportunity, given her goals.

“She’s… lonely, right?”

“Probably.”

“Even though she’s pretty cute. You think she’s cute?”

Lena blinked a few times and made sure her hazy mind hadn’t misheard.

“Well, uh… yeah. She’s shmaller than ush, she hash to be!”

They giggled about that for a moment. Emily was looking for eye contact and she got it. The redhead tried to be as seductive as she possibly could be, caressed her lover’s stomach and collected her courage to whisper the unthinkable.

“Wanna do her?”

It was a delight to watch Lena’s poor, drunken head struggle over the temptation.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Hana had hurried into the bathroom and locked the door behind her.

It wasn’t fair! It simply wasn’t!

Of course, Hana had all kinds of fans, but they were almost all men! And she didn’t want some boy… she wanted what Lena and Fareeha had! She wanted someone soft and delicate to be intimate with, someone that had an easier time understanding her.

Even then, she didn’t want to break her fans hearts, so she kept it to herself. So many young boys were totally into her and what she represented for Korea. However, that wasn’t what’s bothering her at all.

Hana took her smartphone out and checked her messages with one particular contact, like she always did. These days it only served to break her heart.

_Read. Not answered._

She almost cried. The girl she liked seemed to be more distant by the day, and she could only make drunken guesses as to why.

_It’s no damn use! Game over…_

Hana was frustrated, but resigned herself to unfulfilled desires in the end. She’d have to bottle it up to avoid looking like a total jerk in front of her friends again. It took time for that to sink in, until Hana finally stood up. She was a bit wobbly on her feet from all the alcohol, but managed to go over and unlock the bathroom door with a sigh.

“Sorry girls, I was a bit gloomy… there?”

Emily and Lena stood in front her, as if they had waited for her to finally leave the bathroom. They looked like a pair of conspirators, which sent a nice chill down her spine. Before she really understood what was going on, Lena was already pulling her into a small hug, prompting a squeak from the Korean. She felt a feminine body lightly lean against her back soon after. Hana blinked a lot, looking back and forth.

“Girls…?”

A soft voice whispered into her right ear from behind, triggering a wave of goosebumps.

“It’s okay Hana. You don’t have to feel lonely tonight.”

She felt kisses to her neck and watched as Lena nuzzled their noses together with the sly smirk of a teasing friend. The poor girl was completely overwhelmed and found herself breathing ever harder, being sandwiched by two absolutely gorgeous girls.

_J-Jackpot!_

 

 

* * *

 

 

Her neural implant was buzzing. A new message. Sombra quickly conjured a holo screen.

 _[15.10.]_ _Sica:_ “I was thinking bout the SomVa part in last chapter! that was totally heartbreaking! theyre coming back together are they? please please please! u know how much I love them… 八(＾□＾*)”

 _[16.10.] Sica:_ “hiya sagri! u still workin on chapter 13? cant wait! ♡✧( ु•⌄• )”

 _[17.10.] Sica:_ “is everything okay? u dont answer anymore… (｡ŏ﹏ŏ)”

 _[23:46] Sica:_ “sagri pls answer… I miss u so much…”

_No goofy smiley at the end, huh. She’s probably pretty lonely right now, isn’t she?_

The hacker stared at the chat log and felt incredibly guilty. She hadn’t talked to Sica in days, consumed by her current quest. Normally they would chat for hours on end about their ideas for stories and proofread each other’s chapters. Even though they never actually met and Sombra knew that Sica belonged to Overwatch, she was the closest thing the Mexican girl ever had to an actual friend. Not just a colleague or puppet like all the others.

Sombra started to hurriedly tap away at the holo screen.

 _[23:48] Sagrada:_ “I’m so sorry Sica! Please don’t be sad, I’m just busy these da

Hammond grabbed her at the sleeve and pulled her back into hiding, behind a tent. The holo screen vanished before her eyes, the text unsent.

“What the fuck are ye doin’?!”

He hissed at her, totally annoyed that she wouldn’t pay attention.

“Locating the target, what do you think?!”

Sombra lied, cursing herself that this particular princess had to enroll in the British army.

_Her highness couldn’t stay at home, oh nooo… had to accompany a peacekeeping mission to India. Great stuff._

They both grumbled amongst themselves in this humid night within a giant tent city for military personnel. The shocks of the omnic wars were especially felt in this region, hence the large presence of force in the former member of the commonwealth.

“Two more tents… be careful, she’s trained and armed, unlike our last target.”

“She got a bodyguard, too? Still feel that fuckin’ cowboy’s punch. Can’t believe you let that shmuck go…”

 

 

* * *

 

 

Her eyes suddenly flew open. She breathed hard, as if she had just woken up from the most exciting dream.

_Oh god, that was so weird! And exhausting… and hot! It was like god-mode or something! I dreamt I was… like…_

Hana heard some lewd sounds to her right. The hairs on her neck stood at attention.

_I didn’t dream, did I?_

Hana whirled to the side. Lena was lying next to her, probably just as naked as she was, or so Hana assumed with the blanket blocking sight. Her colleague had the most blissful expression on her cute face. Hana just blurted out what came to mind, being used to weird situations and all.

“Oh nonono. This has to be VR! I forgot to take the thing off my head, didn’t I?”

“Hmm? O-Ohhh, you’re awake, luv!”

The Brit was flustered all over, lying on her back. Hana occasionally looked to her colleague’s heaving breasts with perverse curiosity. Without thinking too much, she put her small hand on one of them and squeezed it for good measure. Lena panted accordingly.

“Nope, that… feels VERY real. And sooo soft! Oh my gosh Lena!”

Lena giggled while Hana nibbled on her lower lip.

“Thanks!”

“Why’d you never let me touch your boobs before?!”

“I never knew you like that kinda thing! Plus, you never asked?”

“ _Ah, Shi-bal..._ team communication is failing me.”

Lena looked kinda ill to her, with her head being sweaty and flustered and all. Hana blinked a few times.

“I don’t, uh… want to know what’s going on right now, do I?”

“Oh, I was… uhm… kinda jealous of you two yesterday? Emi was veeeenhh….”

Her hazelnut eyes rolled around in their socket, prompting the squirming Brit to recollect herself for a second there in order to continue.

“…v-very eager to settle my fears”

Now the Emily-sized tent in the blanket finally made sense. Hana felt a bit stupid not to have realized before and was strangely turned on by watching her colleague being pleasured. What Hana could see of the time travelers body was shining nicely in a thin film of sweat, making her that much more appetizing to look at.

“What do ya say, Hana? Ready for round seven?”

“Seven?! I remember… like… two! We did it for that long?”

Lena laughed heartily.

“You were practically insatiable! We had to take turns.”

It wasn’t news to her that she was sexually frustrated, but that much?! Hana blushed hard. That didn’t get any better when someone gently moved up her body, prompting the little Korean to shiver with delight. She still found a way to giggle stupidly, though.

“Hey! Help, I’m getting ganked!”

Emily emerged from below the blanket, smiling impishly at Hana from above. Lena’s juices were still shining on her lips. Her hair was fairly disheveled from all the diving.

“We were at eight, Lena! It’s my turn! I don’t know what ‘ganked’ means, though. Is it something naughty?”

The redhead looked at her with happy puzzlement. The urge to explain nerd vocabulary was strong in Hana, but her curiosity as to how those shining lips might taste this fine morning was stronger.

 

 

* * *

 

 

_ Two weeks later. _

Widow sat with her legs crossed at their dining table, reading an old-fashioned print newspaper. Talon’s top agents had a little kitchen to themselves in the bowels of the facility. It looked rather sterile with white tiles and metal furnishing. At least apart from the colorful party decorations. Sombra had taken it onto herself to ‘liven things up’, as she called it.

“So, why are we still keeping that monkey around?”

Her voice was particularly disinterested today.

**“He’s… useful.”**

While Widow was reading, Reaper cooked. He was making tortillas today. Apart from his usual attire, the black clad killer wore a black apron with a white skulls motif on it. The caption ‘ _Best Teamleader’_ was printed on the front in letters that were usually found on the covers of a metal albums.

“He’s making a mockery out of Doomfist. He’s a dumb monkey, playing African hero.”

**“If this were a game, that sure would’ve been a stupid marketing move.”**

They gifted him that apron on his birthday. It was another one of Sombra’s ideas, and since Widow wasn’t planning to go buy a present herself, she just went with it.

“That wandering flea zoo is nothing like Akande. When will you finally pick him up, anyway?”

Widow had an accusatory tone about herself, even while managing to sound disinterested. It was an art form in and of itself. Reaper growled somewhat agitated, but was generally used to Widow’s bickering.

**“As soon as Sombra gets through Helix security.”**

“Where is she, anyway? Not that I’m complaining.”

**“Some kind of self-proclaimed mission.”**

“Again?”

Reaper turned around with one plate and placed it in front of Widow. Naturally, he wouldn’t eat himself, with the souls of his enemies sustaining him or something stupid like that. Reaper just liked to cook.

**“Yes, again. You two behave very strange, lately.”**

**“** Her? Agreed. Me? Nonsense.”

**“When was the last time you smiled outside of work?”**

Widow raised an eyebrow, catching Reaper looking over her shoulder. She quickly folded the paper to hide whatever article she had been secretly smiling over. If gazes could kill, Reaper wouldn’t exactly be dead because he’s not really alive in the first place, but you get the point.

**“About that Tracer girl again, huh.”**

“That’s none of your business!”

That article had indeed been about an interview conducted by the Evening Standard with Tracer. Widow had found herself practically absorbing the information. She never knew that Tracer’s favorite animals were bunnies! Or that her favorite color was orange!

Reaper was the opposite of impressed.

**“You should’ve offed her months ago when you had the chance.”**

“Why should I? She’s not my target.”

**“She’s hindering our missions.”**

“ _Your_ missions. I don’t miss my targets when I’m working alone.”

Widow’s voice grew spiteful. She hated to be questioned. As long as she didn’t get an order to assassinate, she would or would not kill whoever she damn well wants. Reaper just stared at her while sitting down on the opposite side of the table.

**“That girl is going to be the end of you. You behave like a spoiled child when it comes to her.”**

“You’re being ridiculous, Gabriel.”

She narrowed her eyes and tenderly gripped the wrap-like tortilla filled with salad and chicken filet stripes as if she would strangle it any moment now. He just lowered his head a bit while still staring at her, like he couldn’t believe that retort. With his following sentence, he grew ever more accusatory and started to count the offences on one hand.

**“Remind me: Upon reading about Tracer and her new girlfriend in the newspapers; Who was it again that stole out of the complex, broke into Tracer’s home a second time, forced said girlfriend to pose for photos that implicated an affair, then went to an old-fashioned photography shop to have them developed because she’s clearly tech-illiterate and finally distributed copies of those photos to the whole tabloid media? Out off sheer spite?!”**

Widow twitched. There was an awkward pause in their conversation, because it was true. Widow had been surprised back then how eager Emily was to play along with her petty plan. On top of it all, it had actually been fun to pose with her little fan for those photos. The tiniest hint of a blush appeared on Widow’s cheeks as she stared at her meal.

“I am _not_ tech-illiterate. I just thought it would… look more artistic with an old camera.”

**“Artistic, huh?”**

Reaper sighed. He tried to think how to best put her predicament into words.

**“Look at yourself: You’re losing your cool. I’m not gonna recommend you for re-conditioning, but this has to stop, or it will come back to hurt you.”**

She stared at him for a long while. Reaper was saying what her consciousness had been telling her all this time: That she was behaving like a petty child. Widow closed her amber eyes and opened them again shortly after.

“Understood.”

Then, as if nothing had happened at all, she took a small bite out of her wrap-like tortilla. Widow seemed cooler than before, back in control of her emotions. The small blush quickly subsided. Reaper leant back into his seat, satisfied with this outcome.

**“How’s the meal?”**

_Pretty good._

“Dreadful. Go die in a fire.”

Widow narrowed her amber eyes. Reaper withstood it for a moment before letting his head hang with depression. His gaze fell upon a brochure containing a list of burn centers in England.

 

 

* * *

 

 

“You just want to ruin me…”

Lena was down on her knees. Not because she wanted to, but because she needed to.

“That’s not true. I want to preserve you.”

Amélie caressed her cheek and gripped her chin to make her look upwards. Lena was crying and leaning against the blue hand, feeling it cool her blushing cheek. A sensation of incredible powerlessness coursed through her,

“Preserve me?”

“Oh yes. In time, you will recognize your place, _ma petit imbécile._ I will preserve you until you realize that I am superior to you in every... single... way.”

Amber eyes were staring down into hers. They were shining with mad, twisted determination to see the deed done. Lena shivered, yet continued to ease her head into Widow’s soft hand, like a dog wagging its tail, enjoying being petted by her owner. Amélie smiled at this.

“That’s what you want, too, isn’t it? All that’s left is to accept it. You will feel so... much... better when you realize your place in life.”

Amélie joined her down onto her knees. She squished Lena’s head between her hands, while the supposed hero couldn’t dare to do so much as lift a finger. Amélie’s grin went right off the crazy scale. Her face grew more accented, larger, towered over her with demonic arrogance. Her hair erupted into flames and snakes and shades.

“You will surrender to me. You will be mine. And you will _love_ it!”

 

 

* * *

 

 

“AAAAAAHHHH!”

Lean screamed bloody murder, breathing approximately 300 times a minute. Sweat was glistening on her forehead, sitting on her bed and frantically looking into every corner of the room.

Suddenly, a zombie like person got a hold of her! Lena hit her in the head multiple times, but it wouldn’t let go!

“Owwwwww, stop iiiiit~”, the zombie whined, prompting Lena to stop. She blinked a few times, looking down to get a better look. Emily was sniffling against her chest, snot running out of her nose while she stubbornly refused to let go of her girlfriend’s waist. Her sleepy eyes were very wet from being punched on the head. Unsurprisingly, she cried a little. Lena was pretty strong after all.

“Holy shit, s-sorry Emi!”

 

 

* * *

 

 

Her girlfriend refused to let go, even as Lena dragged her to the bathroom. Emily didn’t really seem to be awake. Maybe part of her consciousness was hit back into sleep or something.

“I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry luv!”

“Whaaaaaah…”

At least she wasn’t really crying, just whining pitifully.

“You… you shouldn’t surprise me like that! I’ve got some dumb reflexes from doin’ hero work, you know?”

“Owwwww…”

It was no use talking to her in this state, so Lena just hurried up, opening her little medication cabinet. Angela had hounded her to keep one around and stocked up, just in case. Some bandages and other stuff fell out as she was searching, distracted by sleepy Emily clinging onto her.

“There we go! Good ol’ Japanese healing oil. Mum always used that when I came home with bruises.”

Emily looked up to a happy Lena. The bright light in the room made her eyes squint. She still sniffled a bit.

“Thaz gonna burn, isn’t it…?”

“Yup! It’s gonna cool right after though.”

“If you’re lyin’, I won’t eat you out for a week…”

Lena laughed nervously as she undid the cap. She hoped she had remembered that right. Too much was at stake...

 

 

* * *

 

 

“Aren’t I supposed to be the one with the nightmares?”

Emily was back to her friendly-teasing self, gently caressing Lena’s flank as they were lying around in bed again. It was still dark outside, but there was enough moonlight so they could see each other.

“Maybe you infected me?”

“Then we can share the suffering, how romantic! Do you remember what happened?”

Lena was nibbling on her lower lip, hesitating to answer that question. Emily didn’t press it either though. She waited patiently.

“It’s... about Widow.”

“Again?”

Ever since the second breaking in, Lena seemed to have completely lost her cool. She was paranoid nowadays. Emily barely kept Lena from boarding up the windows. Instead, she had an alarm system installed in the apartment. That still wasn’t enough though. Apart from the nightmares, Emily had to constantly reassure Lena that everything was okay and that she still loved her.

She couldn’t say ‘more than anything’, though. That place belonged to Widowtracer, no matter her own good.

“Yeah…”

“What did she do?”

 “It was as you said two weeks ago. Dream Widow… she wanted nothing more than to make me realize how inferior I am. She was menacing… and scary.”

Emily kept caressing, inching closer to hug her. Lena buried her head on her girlfriends shoulder and shivered. It was incredibly unlike her, to say something like that. There was a sense of solemnity spreading in Emily, being trusted with these feelings.

“I… I was so scared…”

It made a bit of sense now, why Lena would lash out at something clinging to her, if that dream really haunted her that much. She gave Lena time to calm down. They didn’t talk for a while.

“Widow really isn’t that scary, if you think about it.”

“Huh?”

Lena tried to look up from the shoulder, a bit surprised.

“When she first went after me, it was really scary. I thought she would kill me. Then she laughed a lot because I threw myself at her feet.”

“You did? You never told me…”

Emily scratched the back of her head and smiled shyly.

“It’s a bit embarrassing… I just kinda figured she liked people that way, given how she behaves around you? Maybe she evolved a full-on fetish? Either way, after standing on my head for a minute, she became increasingly… err…”

It was a bit hard to describe. The word eluded her. Lena’s eyes were looking upwards, stuck to her girlfriend like glue. This whole situation felt like a therapy group of Widowmaker survivors.

“…normal, I guess? We just talked. She even smiled a little.”

A shiver went through Lena, who didn’t really knew what to make of all this.

“There used to be a gentle woman in there…”

“I think she’s still there. She didn’t seem like she wanted to kill me or anything. I don’t think she wants to kill or hurt you, either. She just wants to feel… fun, I guess? In the only way she knows.”

“…apart from killing people.”

“Y-Yeah, apart from that. She’s mostly tsundere though.”

Lena arched an eyebrow.

“Tsun-what-a-majigger?”

Emily’s eye twitched. Sica was rubbing off on her.

“…forget that one.”

They continued their sleep soon afterwards, still entangled with each other. Lena wouldn’t have it any other way, even after their talk.

_That nightmare must’ve really been something… I wish I could’ve seen it._

Emily cuddled herself into Lena and closed her eyes, thinking about what she achieved these past weeks, warming her girlfriend up to the idea of threesomes and making her understand Widow's motives.

Still, there was a lot of monumental work ahead of her. And then there was this odd feeling in her stomach, as if something dangerous was brooding outside.

_The next few days and weeks… they’ll probably be the most exciting and exhausting of my life._

Emily shivered in anticipation.

 

 

* * *

 

 

_ 2 months later. _

“Well, that wasn’t as exciting or as exhausting as I thought.”

Sombra was standing on the deck of a medium sized yacht, dressed in lofty black and violet summer dress. A light, translucent fabric spun into something scarf-like that spiraled around her arms and neck, ending in similarly translucent gloves. An alternative design of her hacking gear, of course self-made. She put her sunglasses into her hair and looked annoyed out into the sea.

“These guys weren’t worth a dime. Never seen such pushovers!”

The ‘great’ ape was shoving a pen and a piece of paper in the face of a poor, trembling kid, 18 years old at most. Hammond was wearing a colorful blue Hawaii shirt and an inflatable swimming ring with a yellow duck head in the front. Also, sunglasses, of course.

“Come on, princeling. I ain’t got all day. Put a signature here, here and here!”

While Hammond made sure that another piece of the plan was put into place, she created some holo screens to monitor their situation. They needed to get off this yacht at some point and Hammond couldn’t swim. Without big effort, the hacker turned the boat on and steered it in the right direction. As she was doing that, an alert in the lower corner of her screen caught her attention.

_New messages._

_Sica:_ “Hows chapter 14 coming along? Please please tell me ur working on it! It was so mean of you to leave sombra hanging last chapter!”

 _Sica:_ “And dont u dare ignore me again! Ill fite u!!! (⁎˃ᆺ˂)”

Sombra chuckled.

 _I didn’t deserve it any other way._ _I’m still sorry that I barely talked to you the last months._

She wouldn’t write that, of course. That would just be pathetic.

 _Sagrada:_ “Coming along great! Sorry that I’m such a lazy bum ^.^”

 _Sica:_ “UR HERE! thats so rare!”

 _Sagrada:_ “got a lot to do at work, you know me…”

 _Sica:_ “u sure its not just that ur gloomy about Miji again?”

Sombra froze in a comical way, as if somebody had thrown a rock at her and she needed to properly process what the fuck just happened.

_How does she always figure me out?!_

_Sagrada:_ “I'm sorry Sica, you know I don’t like being second.”

Just thinking about it made her angry, but her plan was finally nearing its end. Surprisingly though, Sica took a lot longer to respond than normal. Something was up. Sombra raised an eyebrow and patiently waited for the _‘Sica writing…’_ sign to vanish.

 _Sica:_ “Sagri, its hard for me to understand… im just doin this for fun. but… in case it changes anything, youll always be my number one! you dont need to beat Miji. I love your stories! I enjoy talking to you a lot! I really like you the way you are Sagri! I like you a lot! I “

Sombra blinked a few times. Sica had ended as if there would’ve been more, but erased it and forgot the ‘I’ at the end. The sound of the waves, the yacht engine and of a gorilla’s fist hitting somebody’s face all went straight past her. She tried to think of a response, but found herself rereading the text over and over. Sica, hyperactive as ever, just began writing again.

 _Sica:_ “I wish we could just ignore the rankings and have fun together… I miss u so much these days. I just want the old Sagri back...”

Sombra looked around the yacht, at the host and all his innocent party-friends dressed in fancy summer clothes. The princeling apparently made the wrong decision of trying to argue his way out of signing the document for them. He was subsequently beat up by Hammond.

_What am I even doing?_

Her mind was racing, bending, turning, trying to justify her own actions. For a moment, Sombra feared for her sanity. Then it all came back to her.

_“Sombra?”_

_The small hacker had almost started to relax. She bolted back up with attention._

_“Si?”_

_“This other author… Miju. She’s leagues ahead of you.”_

_There was a condescending smile on Widow’s lips._

_“Maybe you can learn something from her.”_

Sombra trembled. Sica had almost managed to make her falter, but now her blood was boiling again with pure, virile hatred.

 _Sagrada:_ “I’m sorry Sica. I can’t. It's almost done.”

 _Sica:_ “Sagri, please

Her friend was a fast writer, but Sombra just swiped the holo screen before she could read any more. The hacker was positively fuming, turning to Hammond and the little princeling. Damning the consequences, she shoved the gorilla out of her way and took his place in the lap of the guy. Without hesitation, she threw a punch at his face so hard, his nose gave way with a sickening crunch. Then she threw another. And another.

After she made sure that not even plastic surgery could save his looks, Sombra grabbed him by the neck with her blood-stained fist and smashed his head against the railing. Her voice was dangerously, uncharacteristically calm.

“Can you hear me, _gringo?_ ”

The princeling nodded. It was indiscernible whether he was crying or not. Tears would’ve mixed with blood on his swollen face by now.

“If my amigo here hasn’t made it clear by now: You all are fucking pawns in my game. Your fates are _nothing_ to me.”

Sombra was seething with hatred. Up until now, the innocents on the boat were mainly afraid of the strange gorilla-man. That changed.

“You got two choices: Sign it or die.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Ah, Shi-bal. ~ Ah, shit._  
>   
>   
>  I believe the weird nature of this story is getting to me. Even the narrator is becoming increasingly empathetic with the characters! Not really reliable anymore, is he?  
> In my last story people didn't want me to write a threesome between Widow, Tracer and Hana. This time I just felt like it. I hope that wasn't a mistake! ... It sure was lots of fun to write. ≧ヮ≦  
> Alas, all the players are finally revealed! And Sombra just declared herself game master. Have you seen it coming?  
> As always, please feel free to comment dearest reader (✿◠‿◠)


	10. A Change of Heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter Lena will finally discover what all the fuzz is about... and suffer the test of principle.

“I’d rather die!”

Tracer had lost her weapons in the pursuit and suffered a gun wound to the shoulder. Despite all the blood loss and pain, her expression was the epitome of defiance. A hellish inferno burned around them. If the rising amount of smoke wouldn’t kill them soon, the crumbling halls of Talon headquarters would crush the agents beneath. Still, Tracer stood in the way of her former ally, fists balled and determined to do what it takes.

“Foolish child! Realize that she has deceived you for Talon!”

Lena didn’t want to believe Ana, but deep within she knew the old sniper was right. A single tear was shed, trapped within her aviators. The sound of hoarse coughing from a wounded Amélie behind her back steeled Lena's resolve.

“You wankers were the ones that used me to get here! You destroyed everything!”

Ana laughed with indignation.

“We’re destroying the worst criminal organization in history!”

“And what about the innocent? There are normal civilians working here!”

Part of the corridor to their left collapsed. Some steel beams were no longer able to sustain the heat and pressure. Amidst all of this, Ana began removing her overcoat.

“Chippings fall where the future is carved, child.”

“This isn’t what a hero is supposed to be about…”

Ana’s white, short hair was bound back by a headband. The veteran woman looked incredibly menacing with her eye patch and hatred amidst the inferno, armed with a rifle and a knife in a holster strapped across her chest.

“Of course, heroes act valiantly. Heroes act with honor. And heroes died at her hands!”

Tracer didn’t want any of this to happen. She tried to reach out with her last remnants of hope.

“Amélie isn’t the same as back then, Ana. There is still a gentle woman inside her heart!”

The continued defiance visibly agitated her unlikely adversary. Old wounds resurfaced, kindling a vengeful determination that rivaled Lena’s.

“Amélie died together with her husband years ago! Step aside you stubborn child, the fallen must be avenged!”

Both woman entered combat stances.

“I won’t! I can still save her!”

“Fool! Your cause is lost!”

Their clash was inevitable; the air was sparking with anticipation.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Emily shivered, lying front first on the bed while tapping away at her story on her new notebook. Even though she wrote the scene herself, everything was way too epic not to get excited over! That was especially true with the music that was blasting through her headphones. She sometimes had problems writing scenes of epic proportions, so Sica gave her some anime combat themes that she said would help. At first, Emily was skeptical, but she soon realized that especially the use of violins in that one track had a certain way of getting her imagination pumping.

Still, combat scenes were always hard to write. They were usually drawn out and needed a lot of attention to detail. Emily was at an impasse as to how she should continue. Her fingers were hovering above the keys, impatiently waiting for their mistress to think of something, any spark of creativity.

“Surely she wouldn’t want to hurt Ana? I’d try to knock her out and get them both to safety.”

Emily nodded slowly at the faint voice behind the music in her headphones.

_If she doesn’t want to hurt Ana, Miss Amari would surely be in the advantage. Moreover, Lena has to protect Amélie somehow._

“Maybe she’d use the crumbling environment to her advantage?”

_Sounds reasonable. That would make the fight unique. She’d lose at the start because of all her handicaps, maybe even get wounded, and then do a clever trick to gain the upper hand!_

“Uh! Uh! I know! She could create some kind of illusion behind a light smoke screen with her pilot’s jacket! Maybe she just throws it? Even though I’d terribly miss that old piece of leather…”

Emily liked the ingeniousness of that idea. She began typing away at her notebook in lightning speed, not wanting to waste the muse that had possessed her so suddenly.

_Wait._

The fanfic author blinked a few times and stopped dangling with her legs. A cold shiver crept up her spine as she took the headphones off her ears. Emily spun around in one sudden motion.

Lena had been peaking over her shoulder, lapping away at what appeared to be strawberry-mango ice cream.

“What are you doing here?!”

“Came home earlier from work! You?”

The unmasked author quickly developed a furious blush. For weeks now, thoughts about revealing herself to her girlfriend were heavy on her mind. How would she react? If Lena had to find out about her favorite pastime, Emily imagined that anything was better than being caught red-handed. Like she was now.

“Uh… I-I can explain!"

“Why, you seem to be writing a story about me being a badass! Anything else?”

Emily lightly scratched the back of her head.

"Yeah, that’s basically it…”

“Shocking! How ever darest thou?”

Lena giggled stupidly, but that couldn’t put Emily at ease yet.

“It’s... a bit more than that. I told you about the fandom that’s out there, right?”

“Sure thing, luv.”

“Well… there’s this thing called shipping.”

“Shipping, huh? I’m more into airplanes, honestly.”

Emily had to smile at that stupid quip. It was a bit irritating to explain these terms to someone. Emily usually avoided talking about the fandom to so-called ‘normies’.

“It has nothing to do with _actual_ ships. It’s when you take two characters and put them in a relationship… shipping.”

“Uhhh, exciting! From the way that story went you’re shipping me wiiith-”

“-it’s Widowmaker. I’m… I’m sorry.”

Emily had prepared for the worst, but Lena just lapped away at her ice-cream, showing no signs of being upset.

“It sounds interesting! I wonder why I would defend Widow on anything, though.”

A few quick taps on the notebook pad saved and closed the story document.

_She’ll wonder about quite a lot of things._

“Well, that’s just a dumb little hobby of mine, so-“

“I wanna read it!”

Lena was all of the sudden all up in her face, prompting Emily to renew her furious blush and back up a tiny bit.

“H-Huh?”

“Your story! Stories? I mean, my lovely Emi wrote ‘em! I wanna read ‘em!”

The redhead was suddenly feeling a minor panic at the prospect.

“A-Are you sure? They… they’re really not that good! You might… not…”

_Why am I so nervous?! I knew this was gonna happen! Isn’t this what I wanted?_

Lena crawled onto the bed after finishing her ice-cream, cuddling up to Emily before the notebook and nodded enthusiastically. The redhead stared at her, at a loss for words. There was no choice anymore. This was the moment she had waited for. All that was left was to let her work speak for itself.

_Oh boy._

With a shivering hand, Emily opened the online archives to her favorite selfmade story. Her flight instinct kicked in shortly after.

“I-I’ll just go fold the dishes and do t-the laundry in the meantime!”

Emily flailed off the bed after while garbling that sentence. She tried to storm out of the room with her eyes firmly shut out of embarrassment. Not too surprisingly, she collided with the closet on her way out as a result, accompanied by a dull ‘Thump’.

“Ouch! ... I’m okay! I’m okay!”

Lena wasn’t sure whether to help the disoriented girl or not. In the end she watched Emily stagger her way into the living room.

_What’s with the clumsiness? Usually I’m the one running into walls!_

After pondering for a while with an incredulous expression, Lena vehemently shook her head and shifted attention back to the display. Day after day, she’d seen Emily tap away at this thing. Lena had assumed up until now that those were some kind of reports she was working on for the Evening Standard. Maybe she was doing some intellectual chatting with friends. Stuff that Lena imagined a journalist with an Oxford degree like Emily would do.

This on the other hand was quite the delightful surprise. Lena stared at the title of the story in front of her for a while.

_‘Lethality of Cheerful Laughter’_

_Huh. A story about laughing? Well, I suppose I laugh a lot._

Lena giggled self-consciously.

_It sounds really poetic!_

She cocked her head to the side, dangling with her feet in the air. Then she began to smile happily. There was a fuzzy feeling in her tummy alongside an urge to start reading whatever Emily had to write about her.

_Emily sure is smart! I wonder where this goes._

 

 

* * *

 

 

Butterflies flew around the track and in between carefully tended flowerbeds. People were jogging along a path with trees lined alongside it. They were occasionally spending shade against an artificial ‘sun’ that was blaring almost as annoyingly as the real thing.

Widowmaker wasn't too excited by the realistic re-enactment of a run-of-the-mill park, but it was better than running on a treadmill. Talon had thought so, too, creating this environment on the ground floor of their headquarters. If nothing else, the artificial park was good at surprising visitors who expected the evil corporate vibe.

Widow didn’t care much about that either.

Today she wore a violet sports bra, black leggings down to her knees and a headband while jogging around the park at a brisk pace.

“…after that, the medical team has asked for your presence. That’s in about… two hours.”

“ _Absolument pas_. _J'y étais hier._ ” [Absolutely not. I was there yesterday.]

A meek looking blonde girl with blue eyes and thick glasses nodded at once. She scribbled something on the clipboard that she carried around. It was difficult to try and keep up with Widow while pretending to be fine with the pace. The small assistant’s heavy breathing was giving her imminent collapse away.

“Then there’s your manicure at six… oh and corporal Trginav… wanted to speak to you at half past seven?”

 _"_ _De quoi s'agit-il?”_ [What is it about?]

“Personnel development. What… can I tell him, Madame?”

Widow thought about this for a moment.

 _“Acceptable. Pendant ce temps, préparez mon équipement pour la prochaine mission.”_ [Acceptable. In the meantime, prepare my equipment for the next mission.]

The girl nodded and finally fell behind, reeling and wheezing from the exercise.

It was irritating for Widow, having a personal assistant all for herself. She took it as some kind of reward from the top brass for her flawless success rate. They probably didn’t know how else to do that, since she didn’t exactly want for anything other than killing people and maybe the occasional fancy dress. Widow complained at first, but quickly grew complacent with the girl. It was at least nice to talk French to someone every once in a while.

It was also nice to be alone. At times like these, she could just reminisce about the stories she had read up until now. She found herself actually looking forward to moments like these.

“ _¡Hola amiga!_ ”

A noisy voice interrupted her train of thought before it could really get going.

“Did you miss me?”

Sombra fell in alongside her, effortlessly keeping up in stark contrast to her meek little assistant just a few moments ago.

“I almost managed to forget you, _amie_.”

“We wouldn’t want that now, would we?”

Sombra didn’t need a sports bra per se, since she was quite flat chested. Instead, she opted for a low cut top and hot pants, overall in a mix of violet, neon green and black. Most shockingly however, her hair actually looked normal for once, since she wasn’t in need of all her hacking gear.

_Not a moment of peace today. I must be cursed._

“You’re right. I shouldn’t forget to put a bullet between your eyes someday.”

“Ouch!”

Sombra shook her hand as if she just got burned.

“Something like that would be a mercy for poor Tiffany though! Working her to the bone is fun to you, I guess?”

Tiffany. Widow faintly remembered that being her assistant’s name.

“I don’t deal in mercy. Besides, she signed up for this.”

"Oh, did she? At least as much as you signed up for this, I imagine? I mean, who wouldn't want to be at the receiving end of your whims all day~”

The thought managed to irritate Widow more than Sombra’s snickering.

“Tell me what you want already.”

“Oh, just to give my good friend some company.”

“I don’t need company.”

“Of course you do! We all need to speak to someone, sometimes. Like, about the things that worry us.”

Widow was getting increasingly annoyed.

“As if I would tell you anything.”

“You can’t just bottle it all up! And you don’t have anyone else, do you?”

“I’d rather talk to my assistant than any of you fools.”

Sombra smirked over to her, quite cat-like.

“Oho, getting attached already? She’s a sweet little thing, isn’t she?”

A vein at Widow’s temple was swelling with annoyance.

_I don’t need to justify myself to that stupid girl._

She tried to regain her cool and switched topics to go back on the offensive.

“You are awfully busy lately.”

“Changing the subject, huh? Oh, don’t worry, I’ll finish the next chapter on the weekend when you’re in Dorado.”

Widow narrowed her eyes and regarded Sombra carefully. The Dorado mission was top-secret, but ‘top-secret’ didn’t mean anything when it came to the small Mexican.

_She won’t be grinning like an idiot for much longer._

“You’re not just writing, are you? You’ll be practicing.”

“Eh? Practice? What?”

Sombra obviously didn't catch on, obliviously blinking with her brown eyes. Widow developed a smirk as response. She liked to take these things slow.

“Don’t play dumb.”

“I’m not-“

“I would be a fool not to notice what you’ve been planning all this time.”

There were signs of panic quickly developing on Sombra’s features. Widow was positively delighted. To have someone dangle in her web was one of her favorite pastimes.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 _Sica:_ “U cant be serious rite now…”

 _Miju:_ “I tell you, she’s reading ' _Lethality'_  in the other room!”

 _Sica:_ “U took the one where she goes mad as a first read? Good choice Miji LOL”

 _Miju:_ “… it’s a power fantasy of her.”

 _Sica:_ “So powerful, she loses an arm LOL”

 _Miju:_ “That’s AT THE END in the CONCLUSION of the final fight.”

 _Sica:_ “Still though ≧ヮ≦”

 _Miju:_ “What should I have given her to read then?”

 _Sica:_ “dunno lol”

Emily let her head fall back against the tiled bathroom wall. The washing machine was in full swing right next to her. She was sitting on the floor in the corner and held up her iPhone. As much as she despised that thing, she couldn’t really be bothered to buy a new one. That would just be a waste.

 _Miju:_ “Everyone’s a critic.”

 _Sica:_ “When did u show her?”

 _Miju:_ “About 3 hours ago.”

 _Sica:_ “She’s probably through by now. Go ask her about it! ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ”

 _Miju:_ “…”

 _Sica:_ “What?”

 _Miju:_ “I’m scared…”

 _Sica:_ “Awww cmon bby…(｡ŏ﹏ŏ)”

 _Miju:_ “… Alright. Wish me luck.”

 _Sica:_ “Yeah! U GO GIRL! (☞ﾟヮﾟ)☞”

Gathering all her courage, Emily stood up. The act was a lot shakier than she would’ve liked. She left the bathroom with an eerie feeling.

_Come on, there’s nothing to fear. What’s the worst that could happen?_

With that on her mind, Emily donned a hopeful smile and opened the bedroom door.

“I’m finished with the chores! How did you… like…”

She blinked a few times. The bedroom was empty, save for her notebook. A small note was stuck on top of it. Emily moved towards the bed and picked it up. A crappy illustration of mini Tracer showing a thumbs up accompanied the message.

_“Heya! Have to go to HQ, I’ll grab us dinner on the way back!”_

Emily was perplexed. She didn’t know what to think about this. There was only this awkward feeling. She had to talk to someone, anyone, so she brought her iPhone back out.

 _Miju:_ “She’s gone!”

Emily waited a few moments, to no avail.

 _Miju:_ “Sica?”

 

 

* * *

 

 

“So you came here?”

“Yeah…”

“Shouldn’t you talk with… you know… your girlfriend?”

“I thought you might know about these things!”

Lena was sitting Indian style on Hana's bed in her one-room-apartment at Overwatch HQ. A snowstorm was raging outside right now, covering London in snow and ice. Hana noticed her smartphone vibrating on the side and could only imagine how Miju was feeling right now.

“Of course I know about stuff like that. People ship me, too. Like, a lot.”

“Oh I saw that! You’re apparently not as popular when it comes to stories though. Even McCree has more people writing about him!”

Hana looked like somebody just punched her in the gut. Oblivious as ever, Lena just continued.

“There’s a lot more cosplay of you though. And tons of videos of those cosplayers doing dirty-“

“THAT’S enough of that topic, okay?!”

Lena apparently hit a nerve, as Hana was positively fuming. She breathed through a few times to keep her cool. Then she continued.

“It’s sometimes best we don’t know what sick shit is out there! Take Angela for example: She’d get a heart attack from her stack of ‘fanart’.”

"Right? There’s so much... 'art' out there about Mom… half of it made me _really_ uncomfortable.”

They were both kinda sitting in silence for a short moment there. They might’ve even blushed a little until Hana finally continued the conversation.

“I’m amazed that you looked all of that up in half an hour.”

“Well, yeah! After reading Emi’s story, I was really curious, so I wanted to know how deep this goes…”

“Pretty deep, huh?”

“So. Much. Lewdness…”

Lena had a thousand-yard-stare, as if she'd just come back from the horrors of the omnic wars. She needed a moment for everything to sink in.

“What about Widowmaker?”

“Oh, there’s tons of porn-“

“I KNOW!”

They both had something they desperately tried to get out of their heads now.

“I was asking what you think about people pairing you with her.”

“Oh… uh… well…”

Lena scratched her cheek. She clearly hadn’t formed a real opinion on that topic yet. Hana in the meanwhile just swayed around in her gaming chair, patiently waiting for an answer.

“Widow… she’s the only person in the world I hate for what she has done! But… I understand, I guess? She was made to do this. It’s tempting to hope that she can be saved.”

Emotions visibly roiled inside of Lena as she was thinking. It was the most fascinating thing to Hana.

“So there’s a chance?”

“No.”

“Huh?”

“Emily is my girlfriend.”

They stared at each other. Hana gradually developed a blush.

_She actually thinks I want her to cheat! Have you told her nothing Miji?!_

“Nono, you dummy! I was talking about you saving Widow. And I think your girlfriend wouldn’t mind a bit of action between the three of you, if you haven’t noticed yet, you blockhead!”

Lena bit her lower lip for a second there and looked away, thinking.

“That’s how it is? Huh… I… I guess it would be nice if Widow could actually feel and open up to others, like she does in Emi’s story. I mean, she's ridiculously hot. And I only remember positive things about miss Lacroix from back then. Right now though… I don’t know. I’m kind of… unconvinced that she can be anything but a homicidal loon.”

Lena shivered before continuing.

“Even if trying to save her would be the heroic thing to aim for, I... I just can’t.”

To Hana, it looked like the little Brit was remembering her past encounters with Widowmaker. It looked like they scarred her, deeply. Hana quickly scootered over and put a hand on the shivering messes shoulder.

“It’s okay, Lena. You don’t need to force yourself to do anything risky, you know?”

“Yeah, you’re right… but I do want to know what Emi thinks about this. Her story…”

“She’s really good at writing, isn’t she?”

Lena brightened up at that question and clung to it, trying not to think about all the difficult things.

“Oh, she manages to write so dramatic! There are these twists and turns! First I’m sad, then I’m pumped and happy and next thing I know I’m weirded out so much that I’m feeling sick! Then I’m sad again and almost crying until it turns around a last time for a fuzzy feeling in my tummy. It felt like a roller coaster!”

Hana bit her lower lip. It was weird to hear all that coming from Tracer, the one girl they were all writing about.

“I know what you mean.”

_Maybe I should show her my stuff, too._

“But she never gets really lewd. I loved that about the story. It was about feelings until the end! Then there’s this thing called ‘smut’? I read a bit about that from someone called Sicka?”

Hana stiffened up.

“Y-You did?”

“Yeah! Apparently, it’s all about describing how I have sex with other people! What sick fuck would write that? I mean what the hell, right?”

“......riiight...”

_I… probably shouldn’t show her my stuff…_

Hana was sulking for the rest of the evening.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Sombra, unsuccessfully, tried to calm herself down. She brought a bit of distance between herself and Widow as they were jogging, obviously afraid as was visible to anyone who cared to watch.

_Did she really find out?! I’m so done for!_

“ _A-Amiga_ , it’s not what it looks like…!”

“Isn’t it now?”

“No! Not at all!”

“I wonder. I’ve seen you do it.”

Widow’s voice was calm as they entered what had to be their fourth round around the park. She didn’t even break a sweat! Sombra felt entirely inadequate to talk about this under these circumstances, but it couldn’t be helped. Her thoughts were scattered all over the place.

_She was there?! When? Did I really not notice her following us?_

“But… you can’t just know from watching!”

“Can’t I?”

A distinctive, husky laugh made Sombra shiver and look down in despair.

_Yup, I’m done for. If she knows, she’ll beat me up any moment now. Or maybe she’ll kill me in my sleep tonight or-_

“Stupid girl. You’ve been writing about it all this time.”

“Eh?”

Sombra whirled her head around to stare at Widow. Amber eyes looked back, a bit irritated by that reaction.

“What, did you think I would not notice? Are you that dense?”

_Wait. I didn’t write about my plans, did I? She can’t mean…_

A brief moment of relief was quickly overruled by furious blushing.

“ _Amiga_ , you got it all wrong, I don’t-“

“-have a huge crush on that Song girl?”

“N-No!”

“Oh, I think it’s quite established. You write about it in every other story.”

“T-That’s just…”

Widow's voice grew cold and condescending.

“It’s pretty pathetic.”

“…”

Sombra felt increasingly more embarrassed and hot around the head. She did her best to hide her face behind her hands.

“You even practice that stupid game all the time to challenge her one day.”

It was completely true. Sombra had practiced Starcraft for months now whenever she found the time. Even if she barely improved at all, she kept trying.

“Y-You don’t know that!”

“Oh, I caught you playing it, remember?”

“…”

“The most pathetic thing though: This whole scheme isn’t even your own idea.”

“Please don’t…”

Widow inched closer, just so she could whisper her words with a greater effect.

“ _That’s from one of Emily’s stories_.”

Sombra short-circuited. She couldn’t anymore. The Mexican girl just ran off wailing, aimlessly until she unceremoniously collided with something solid.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Widow was sitting in an elaborate chair in her domain, enjoying a glass of Chardonnay, swaying it about. She wore a white blouse and a blue skirt, mostly because almost nobody would see her wearing something so plain tonight. Something so old and burdened with memories.

Thinking back, Widow had been quite satisfied to watch that stupid girl run at full speed against a street lamp. Afterwards she just continued to jog along at the same pace as if nothing happened.

A small sigh left Widow’s lips in celebration of a job well done.

_Oh well._

Messing with Sombra wasn’t as fun as she’d hoped for. In fact, she hadn’t even felt ‘fun’ in as much as two months. Ever since Tracer installed that alarm in her apartment. They also didn’t happen to run into each other on missions anymore.

“Is everything in order, Madame?”

Her little assistant looked up from her work of folding Widow’s freshly washed clothes in the other corner of the room. Tiffany already had a neat stack ready to go.

_Loin de là. [Far from it]_

“Oui.”                                                                                       

“Is the champagne to your liking?”

“Oui.”

The blonde girl looked like she wanted to pry further. Yet she knew her place and went back to neatly folding clothes. At one point in the past, Widow had thought that she liked that about her.

“Have you signed up to the advanced language course?”

“Yes, Madame, as you demanded.”

Amber eyes stared at the assistant.

“Good. Practice well. I detest hearing you butcher French by trying. And talking alone can only entertain for so long.”

Widow took a swig of Chardonnay. Her mood had suddenly turned sour and she couldn’t quite pinpoint the exact reason. While staring at her assistant, Widow began to notice things that she didn’t care for before. Tiffany was neither very slim, nor particularly chubby. She always dressed in a shirt, tie and skirt in boring colors. She was short, but not too short. Not particularly outgoing, but also not too shy. Overall average to the bone, trying to garner as little attention as possible.

“You must hate me.”

There was a rare moment where her assistant lost her composure, blinking at Widow while looking over through her thick glasses.

“P-Pardon?”

“Why are you here?”

Composure slowly came back to the assistant.

“To… do your bidding. I am your assistant, Madame.”

“And why have you come to be my assistant?”

Tiffany looked back down to finish the last few pieces of clothing.

“I am not at liberty to tell.”

The conversation got lost at that point. Widow looked elsewhere, to the paintings she used to cover up the steel walls of her domain.

“Is that so?”

She didn’t expect an answer and neither did her assistant give one.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Rain fell in droves on the small prison island. Reaper stood in front of the facility with one Hellfire Shotgun resting on his shoulder. There were no guards, no nothing, just as they had anticipated. Sombra had done a phenomenal job with the shift planning software of the Helix facility. It was all a bit boring though, he had to realize.

A man-sized part of the prison wall was finally busted open by some sort of inhuman force. A hulking, black and bald man emerged from the rubble and approached Reapers position. Rain cleared the man of dust and provided an eerie environment. There was no sound apart from raindrops falling in droves.

Akande came to a halt in front of Reaper. They grabbed each other by the wrist as form of greeting.

“It was about time.”

**“I would’ve preferred it sooner myself.”**

“What took you so long?”

**“Helix proved to be a hard nut to crack, surprisingly.”**

That might as well have been a lie and Reaper knew it. Sombra should’ve been able to make this prison break happen earlier, but he didn’t want to badmouth an underling to his equal.

“So Sombra took her sweet time.”

_**No use keeping things from Akande.** _

Reaper sighed.

**“Probably.”**

“You are growing soft.”

**“Only when it comes to my team.”**

“Good. I wouldn’t want to see you go easy on our enemies.”

**“I saw your fight with the monkey. Welcome to the grudge club.”**

Akande slightly twitched at the mention of Winston. They both entered the automated aircraft. Engines started up, bringing the bird into the air to leave the storm-ridden island.

“So, what’s on the menu tonight?”

**“I’ll make that mango dish you showed me before.”**

“Ogbono. Grandma used to make the best Ogbono soup…”

Akande grumbled and licked his lips, reminiscently.

**“I’ll need to make something else for Widow though. Never would’ve thought that she’s allergic to mango.”**

“That woman is allergic to anything bright in the world.”

**“I wonder about that these days.”**

“Oh?”

**“Never mind.”**

“Alright. Pray tell, where is my weapon?”

Reaper scratched his mask, approximately where his cheek normally would be.

**“Well…”**

 

 

* * *

 

 

_Later that week, on the first day of Christmas_

The night flight from Gibraltar to London wasn’t even filled to half capacity. They were sitting together, leaning against each other. Emily did seem exhausted from flying around for a Christmas dinner at Winston's, but didn’t complain.

_I barely ever hear her complain._

The thought just went through her head at random while stroking her girlfriend’s leg. Her Christmas present was still loosely lying on Emily’s lap beside the gentle hand.

“You really like the scarf, don’t you?”

“I do. You like your new earring too, though,”

Lena bit her lower lip.

_Got me there._

They gifted these little things to each other yesterday on Christmas Eve. They even had a small Christmas tree at home.

_Emi had so much fun decorating it…_

“Emi?”

“Hmm?”

“Are you okay? With us, I mean.”

The redhead looked over to her in the corner of her light brown eyes. They hadn’t moved for what must’ve been an hour now, just sitting there, leaning against each other.

“Of course. Why wouldn’t I be?”

It took Lena a moment to respond.

“I mean, I’m always out there. Sometimes I’m not coming home for days. I could get hurt at any day of the week. Worse, somebody could come into our home and-”

“I know.”

Lena was a bit surprised. She looked at Emily through the corner of her eyes.

“You’re fine with that?”

“Lena, I’m… lonely a lot. Sometimes I'm scared, but I believe in you, that you will manage to pull through for us. I’m not fine with it, but I’m okay with it if that’s what it takes… what it takes to be with you.”

They were quiet for a bit. Lena developed goosebumps. She took Emily’s hand during that time and squeezed it lovingly.

Still, something was strangely off, as if Emily had been dragging along something with her all day now.

“Is there something on your mind?”

“N-No, everything’s okay.”

“You’re a terrible liar, luv.”

It was Emily’s turn to bite her own lower lip.

“I… I just… you read a lot of my stories now…”

“We talked about this, Emi…”

The atmosphere was getting a bit tense between the two of them.

“I know… What you said about her, I just… I think there is still hope for her. And I think you’re the only one who can save her.”

Emily was angling her head so that she would be nestling against her girlfriend.

_What if Hana was right… Does she really want me to pull Amélie into our relationship?_

“What if I don’t want to do that…”

“That’s a lie.”

Emily was whispering her words and it was hard for Lena not to tear up

“You’re the greatest hero in my eyes. I know you would feel endless regret if there was just a chance.”

“Th-There is no chance…”

“You felt her emotions when she was with us, didn’t you?”

Lena shivered. Thinking back was difficult, but Emily was slowly getting her used to dealing with that fear.

“The Amélie of old is too far gone, luv. I can’t…”

A squeeze at her hand made Lena pause. Slowly, Emily took out her phone with the free hand, activated the display and opened an image of someone familiar.

“She’s at a graveyard?”

Emily nodded solemnly.

“Someone shot that photo yesterday. She’s… putting flowers on her husband’s grave.”

They both stared at that photo for a while. Lena felt as if one by one, all her arguments were falling apart. She felt tears well in her eyes and an apathy to do something against it. There was only one thought that needed expressing, flowing out with a broken voice.

“She looks so sad.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter kind of ended on a sad note. I was actually tearing up while writing the last part in the office. That was... interesting to explain.  
> I put the translations in the text, since I wrote such long sentences in French. How did you like it, dearest reader?
> 
> As a sidenote: I recommend reading the official 'Reflections' comic by Blizzard if you haven't already, as I was paying homage to a lot of the panels.  
> Oh and in case anyone wants to know what Emily was listening to at the start of the chapter:  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHakl2bMQYI


	11. From Dorado with Love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Widowmaker  
> versus  
> Tracer  
> Round 2  
> FIGHT!

 

Water pattered onto her body in a steady rhythm. It was merely warm. Her skin had gotten sensitive, so she had to be careful with the temperature.

Widow thought of that as quite the shame. She liked hot showers back when she was still her old self. That old urge got her burnt sometimes. Today she needed to be fit for the mission. Still, she occasionally and absent-mindedly tested the waters.

Her thoughts were lingering somewhere else right now. Yesterday she had visited her husband’s grave with a bouquet of red roses. It felt like a duty, like something she owed. Widow felt like admitting to regret.

Amber eyes blinked once.

This time of year always blindsided her most. She wasn’t used to feeling so much anymore.

 _How long have I been daydreaming_ _?_

A simple motion stopped the shower. Widow lingered for a few moments, wondering. Then she noticed a blurry figure waiting outside. Waiting for quite some time, she imagined.

A rush of anger got hold of her.

_I’ve been like this for months now!_

She wanted to hit the shower wall, but thought better of it. It was harder to control herself these days. After breathing through deeply, Widow gracefully stepped outside, one clean-shaven, dripping leg in front. A slight mist was hanging around in the bathroom, steaming up the mirror and her assistant’s thick glasses.

Tiffany held a towel at the ready for her mistress. Widow stared at her with scrutiny. The American girl’s demeanor was sober and distant, like it always had been. Her mistress just never cared to particularly notice before.

_She reminds me a bit of myself._

It bothered her beyond reason. A sudden whim caught hold of Widow.

“Why do you wear glasses?”

“I am short-sighted, Madame.”

Widow’s hand went past the towel and took away Tiffany’s steamed up glasses instead. The blue-eyed girl blinked a few times. No matter who you are or what you like, Widowmaker was objectively gorgeous. Tiffany blushed slightly, trying to keep her gaze away from places where they didn’t belong.

“Lucky you.”

The mistress allowed herself to smirk and let the glasses glide gently into her assistant’s hair.

_C'est mieux. [Better.]_

“They don’t suit you. You will wear contact lenses from now on instead.”

Widow’s voice lost its playfulness. That was an order.

“Y-Yes, Madame.”

“Now go and fetch my underwear. I feel like lace today.”

“Yes, Madame!”

Widow took the towel and dried herself up, watching her aide with amber eyes as she rushed out of the bathroom. There was a certain smug satisfaction after teasing the girl, even if that wasn’t as satisfying as teasing another certain someone.

_Wait… Am I acting weird again?_

The thought penetrated her skull before she could analyze her enjoyment further. Widow stood there in thought. While drying herself with the towel, Reapers words of warning echoed through her mind.

_‘When was the last time you smiled outside of work? This girl will be the end of you.'_

 

 

* * *

 

 

Tiffany soon returned with black lace underwear. It wasn’t the best for combat situations, but Widow really didn’t care. She just felt like it.

“Is everything in order, Madame?”

Tiffany seemed genuinely concerned, trying her very best not to stare. Widow arched an eyebrow, clueless why her aide would ask such a thing. Then she noticed that she had been sub-consciously rubbing her temple with one hand. Widow quickly stopped herself.

“It is. Everything is in order.”

A feeling akin to embarrassment crept up on Widow, so she just snatched the bra out of Tiffany’s hands and started dressing.

“Is… there anything I can help with?”

The mistress looked at her with irritation as she finished pulling her lace panties into a snug position.

“You can fetch the hair-drier.”

Widow turned away and sat down in front of the only mirror in the room. Her assistant did as she was told and soon went to work.

They spent some time listening to the blow of hot air in an overall slightly awkward atmosphere. Both had long since gotten used to that kind of relationship. Amber eyes were observing the process with scrutiny until the deed was finally done. Her assistant was beginning to put all the tools away and take her leave, like she always would.

Unlike usual, her mistress’ voice stopped her from doing so.

“Stay. The comb next. You will be doing my hair today.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

“That soon?”

They were sitting on their couch at home. Lena was lazily zapping through channel after channel. She briefly stopped at what seemed to be an old drama flic.

_“You’re tearing me apart, Lisa!”_

The flic seemed to have particularly bad acting. Standing next to the television was a comparably small Christmas tree. It was spending light on this evening instead of the overhead lamp that usually did the job. They wanted to save a bit of energy this way.

“Bah, nothing decent on the telly… Sure, why not? Don’t you wanna come along?”

“Of course I want to! I’m happy… it’s just a bit, uh, sudden.”

‘Sudden’ was an understatement for Emily. She was excessively nervous about what would happen tomorrow.

“It can’t be helped, luv. I know she’ll be working against us on the mission tomorrow, so that’s our best shot.“

“Didn’t you cancel on the mission precisely for that reason?”

Lena had indeed avoided Widow any chance she could get in the past few months. Even now, the mere thought made the little Brit squirm.

“Well… yeah, but now we’re on it.”

“We sure are.”

Emily leaned against her girlfriend and let out an anxious sigh. They had a blanket over their legs to help against the cold. Lena always used these opportunities to stroke Emily’s closest thigh possessively, which the owner of that thigh didn’t mind at all.

Zap.

_“-natural habitat of the wild capybara. The local people have learned how to tame them and use them as pets.”_

“Oh gosh! Lena, look how cute they are!”

_“Sometimes, the village children are allowed to ride on the back of the animal.”_

“Woah! Thaz like a horse for mini people.”

“You mean children?”

“Yeah, those.”

“Hmm. It’s not that special I guess.”

“Why’s that?”

“You could do that with a pig, too. Capybara’s do look like furry pigs.”

“Ever rode a pig, luv?”

“No, but I heard some of our prime ministers liked to do that back in the day.”

Zap.

_“…in a shocking turn of events, decided to abdicate en masse today.”_

“Ah, sorry!”

Lena forgot for a second that Emily had an aversion to watching the news at home. She didn’t want to ruin the mood, especially when her girlfriend was on vacation from all this news stuff at the Evening Standard, so she quickly switched the channel again.

_“As of now, observers wait for further development-“_

Zap.

_“…speculate that the criminal organization Talon…”_

Zap.

_“…frantic search for the next person in line…”_

Zap.

_“…your mother is a hamster, and your father smells of elderberries!”_

Finally, Lena turned the television off.

“Gee, there’s really nothing on tonight!”

“Wasn’t that last one Monty Python?”

“Monty who?”

“You don’t… aww, I’ll show you someday.”

“Why not-“

Lena felt a soft hand drift below her shirt, lovingly caressing her tummy.

“-heh, one more time before the big day?”

“Don’t say it like it’ll be our last...”

Emily made a pout, prompting a giggle from her girlfriend. Lena leant down for a small kiss and looked deep into her eyes. She whispered:

“Of course not. We’ll be together Emi, no matter what.”

They giggled lightly into their next kiss. Still, Emily wouldn’t be able to shake her nervousness tonight.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Widow had never allowed her to take care of the personal grooming. Up until now at least. As if that wouldn’t be enough, the smaller girl was already shaken up from earlier. Witnessing Widow’s naked, wet, godly proportions made her want to squeal for all kinds of different reasons. Yet on the outside, Tiffany remained the very image of contenance _._

“Yes Madame.”

The American girl took the tool as instructed and got to work in silence for a while. She delicately combed her mistress’ blue hair, pulling it back, meticulously removing every slight bump on the way.

“You’ve done this before.”

There was a hint of surprise in Widow’s voice, probably stemming from the fact that Tiffany kept her own blonde hair short, apart from a small ponytail that barely reached the neck.

“I have.”

“Where?”

She hesitated.

_What’s with the sudden interest?_

“Before this… I guess I was a mix of stylist and manager for an actress back home in Jersey.”

Tiffany put the tool aside and tied the blue hair up in exactly the way Widow liked it. She had observed her mistress do it a hundred times.

“How was her hair?”

“A bit brittle, but beautiful. It needed a lot of attention, but it wasn’t as long as yours.”

“Why did you give up on that job?”

_That question again..._

There was an eerie feeling in her stomach. Tiffany had taken this job opportunity out of her own volition, quite some time ago. Even if working for Widow was exhausting, she bore it out of sheer admiration. Tiffany sometimes thought about breaking the act.

_No Tiff, keep your mouth shut! She’d hate me if I tell her the truth._

“I… am not at liberty to tell.”

“It that so?”

_Deja-vu._

There was an uncomfortable silence between them, at least for Tiffany. She did her best to hide it. Her hands reached out for a can of hair spray, but then hesitated.

“I don’t hate you, Madame.”

This whole conversation just stopped there. Widow didn’t seem to react to the delayed comment. Either way, it felt like there was a heavy weight lifted off Tiffany’s heart. She continued to work in silence for a while.

Widow stood up as soon as Tiffany finished up, blindsiding her assistant who was still lost in thought.

“Is my equipment ready?”

“Your… bodysuit is waiting for you at the door. The equipment and supplies department just sent a clearance for your weaponry; I will retrieve them after we’re done.”

“Thank you, Tiffany.”

The blonde girl blinked a few times. She had expected to be berated for not having collected Widow’s Kiss and the grappling hook yet, not to be thanked for it. That also had to be the first time her mistress called her by name. She was appropriately baffled.

“You’re… welcome, Madame.”

“After I return from the mission, we will have a talk about your function as my assistant.”

A cold shiver ran down the little assistant’s spine. Tiffany stiffened up and nodded at once.

“Yes, Madame!”

 

 

* * *

 

 

Tiffany rushed out of her mistress’ domain before it would become clear how flustered she was. On her way out, she grabbed her clipboard and clung to it for dear life. She didn’t slow down in the dreary, grey corridors of Talon headquarters, but soon enough she could feel her phone vibrating. Tiffany stopped dead in her tracks and took one hand off the clipboard pressed to her chest.

The display showed a text message.

 _Sagrada:_ “You look pale. What happened?”

The feeling of being watched had freaked her out in the first few days, but she sort of got used to it. Tiffany had given up trying to make sense of her employer. She held the phone close to write an answer.

 _Tiff:_ “She asked me again! I don’t know how long I can keep this up!”

 _Sagrada:_ “What was your answer?”

 _Tiff:_ “Not at liberty to tell.”

 _Sagrada:_ “Good. I’d hate to send you home if you were to let the circumstances of your employment slip.”

 _Tiff:_ “I won’t, I promise!”

 _Sagrada:_ “That’s what I want to hear. Have you given her the medicine?”

 _Tiff:_ “Every day for months now.”

Tiffany had been immensely relieved that the tablets weren’t noticeable in sparkling wine and dissolved quickly. She didn’t want to know what Widow would do with someone who slipped ‘medicine’ into her drinks.

 _Sagrada:_ “Is it working?”

She felt bad about doing this, but her employer insisted that this was good for Widow.

 _Tiff:_ “She has been loosening up a lot! She was really friendly today, even let me do her hair.”

Tiffany couldn’t help but smile.

 _Sagrada:_ “Just in time. We have to proceed. You do remember what I’m talking about?”

The small assistant shivered. Back then, agreeing to this was her only way in.

 _Tiff:_ “Do we have to? I really don’t know about this anymore…”

 _Sagrada:_ “You do if you want to stay. I’ll send you your detailed instructions shortly.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

She wished somebody had prepared her for this moment. Emily felt small. She had never felt smaller in her life.

“So zis is your little friend, Lena? Such a beautiful maiden!”

Reinhardt was huge, even as he sat down next to her without his armor! It was true that the big German was positively adorable, yet he still managed to intimidate her by sheer size and volume of voice. Emily looked away to somewhere else, obviously flustered, and held tightly onto Cassy, her little camera bot.

“I am REINHARDT WILHELM, at your service!”

He held out one of his enormous hands in a gesture of greeting. Emily needed a moment and slowly stretched out her own hand. Reinhardt grinned over both ears and shook it ‘gently’.

“C’mon, the lady is shy. Leave ‘er be Reinhardt.”

McCree was the first to come to Emily’s rescue, since Lena seemed to be preoccupied with being absolutely fascinated by Emily’s shyness. All eyes were on the red-haired girl, being the newcomer and all, so she was blushing particularly hard right now.

“O-Oh, it’s okay! I’ll just have to get used to… all the heroes! I’m such a big fan, haha…”

Emily found herself awkwardly laughing and fidgeting around. Reinhardt quickly chimed in with his own roaring laughter. This time, Emily didn’t have any alcohol to calm herself down, as she did when they were meeting Angela and Fareeha. Instead, all she got was Lena squealing at her side, cuddling up to her.

“Isn’t she cute? She’s so cute! I love ‘er so much!”

“Can somebody tell me again why we have a reporter on a top-secret mission?”

The grumbling came from Soldier 76 on the other side of the aircraft. It made Emily prop up like a startled meerkat. Angela however was quick to berate him.

“You forced the poor girl to sign a non-disclosure agreement _and_ two other binding contracts not even an hour ago. Your memory must be getting worse.”

“Yeah, you mean old bully!”

Hana had stood up from her seat and jammed her finger against his chest.

“She just wants to watch her girlfriend at work, so she doesn’t have to worry that much, okay?! I mean, it’s not like you would understand, you don’t even have one!”

Soldier just brushed that finger off his chest and glared back at Hana.

“No respect for your elders, again! Having a journalist on board is a serious concern – not like someone as inexperienced as you would understand!”

“Oh yeah? Well, if I had your experience, I’d die a virgin!”

“Why you little…!”

The two of them continued to argue with each other while the other inhabitants of the aircraft tried their best to fade them out.

“So, what do you think?”

“H-Huh?”

Emily blinked over to Lena.

“I didn’t expect you would be this out of it! You were so calm when we first met.”

“O-Oh, I… I’m good at being brave one on one. Does that make sense?”

The redhead’s unsteady smile was barely showing. Some of her face hid behind the green scarf that Lena had bought her as a present for Christmas.

“Not really, luv.”

_I suppose it wouldn’t…_

“Okay, uhm… You know, it’s not me risking her hide on this, right? I… I’m a bit scared to be honest. For you.”

That Lena could understand. She cuddled a bit closer while Emily bit her lower lip in embarrassment.

“D’aww, you don’t need to worry Emi! We’re professionals! That’s why you’re here, too, right? So you don’t have to worry all the time when I’m out on a mission.”

Lena rubbed her girlfriend’s waist reassuringly.

“Yeah…”

“You just have to make sure that Cassy follows at a nice distance, so he doesn’t get hurt. We can talk to each other as much as you want.”

Emily looked at the earpiece that she held tightly in her hand and nodded slowly.

“Don’t you worry, luv, everything will be fine!”

 

 

* * *

 

 

“…if you all do what you were trained to do! We’re the best Talon has to offer.”

Right now, squad commander Viktor Trginav was giving one of his rousing speeches. She had worked with the commander on countless missions and it showed. Listening to the Slovakian bored Widowmaker to all hell and back.

“It sure is crazy how fast we are adapting.”

Amber eyes looked over to a woman of Asian descent that was sitting by her side. Most everyone else in the aircraft knew to keep their distance to Widowmaker. Not so Ruby. Ruby Yang was Widow’s spotter and a captain in the reconnaissance department. She wore standard clothing with a black ponytail poking through her military cap.

The assassin pondered for a while whether she would entertain her colleague with an answer. Ultimately, she decided that anything was better than to keep listening to one of Viktor’s speeches.

“The state of equipment couldn’t stay the way it was; our useless friend Reaper lost half a dozen on his last mission to kill the monkey.”

“Yeah… Overwatch kinda dictates the rules of the playing field. Now we have all this tech… Our very own versions of Valkyrie and Crusader gear!”

Widow sneered.

“Imitations.”

Another inhabitant of the aircraft cleared her voice and interrupted their little conversation.

“This is no ‘Valkyrie’ equipment, Captain.”

The words came from an older woman with short, red hair and an outright regal attitude, sitting right next to Ruby. She was dressed in a functional, yet beautifully sinister black outfit.

Moira addressed Widowmaker next.

“And you should know that my invention is certainly _not_ an imitation, dear.”

Ruby was visibly intimidated by the women’s sharp demeanor. Widow's amber eyes narrowed with jealousy. She hadn’t managed to solicit that emotion from Ruby in a long time.

“I could have sworn you mentioned a common prototype with the Valkyrie series, _doctor_.”

Widow loved to get under the doctor’s skin, watching how that self-absorbed woman’s eyebrow would twitch. She couldn’t stand her one bit.

“Yes yes, to be fair. _My_ version however is much more suited for use on the battlefield than Doctor Ziegler’s eh… let’s call it ‘work’.”

Since Ruby was a good head shorter than the two of them, her and Widow could both glare at each other.

“Who do we have to thank for your presence, Doctor O’Deorain?”

“Me, myself and I.”

“Any reason?”

“My reasons are my own, obviously.”

Widow frowned.

_Certainly not to watch over your ‘favorite’ patient?_

Moira simply turned her head away, ending the conversation while probably pretending to listen to Trginav’s rambling. The Irish woman had the curious ability to dominate every social interaction she was part of. This had been no exception.

Ruby certainly didn’t seem to object. Widow looked towards her colleague out of the side of her eye. The small captain was fidgeting around like a scared bunny. Her spotter always was like this before a mission: Weak and nervous. She couldn’t hurt a fly if she wanted to.

With one leisure motion, Widow pulled Ruby’s cap down into her face.

“H-Hey!”

The spotter protested and struggled to retake ownership of her headwear.

“Stop worrying, _petit sot_. It’s not like you will be anywhere near the fighting.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

Emily was sitting alone in the aircraft. Since days were shorter in the winter, it was already dark outside, making the notebook on the table in front of her the only source of light. She was still sitting comfortably on the corner couch, especially with the blanket she cuddled herself into.

“Testing. Can you hear me?”

_“Loud as can be! You alright, luv?”_

“Y-Yeah, I’m just a bit nervous… is all.”

_“D’aww, I told you to stop worrying! Everything will be fine, you’ll see!”_

“If you say so…”

_“Just keep calm. I miiight catch a bullet if you scream into my ear all of the sudden.”_

“… I won’t do that!”

Just in case so she actually wouldn’t, Emily muted herself in the comms whenever she wasn’t talking. The heroes already started to set up their operation outside. Emily could watch them take position in the evacuated streets of Dorado. Cassy was her eyes for as long as the little robot kept his distance to avoid getting shot.

“Can you tell me what the mission is about, now?”

_“Sure thing! You’ll see it anyway and old grumpy can’t exactly stop me now.”_

Jack actually stood within earshot. Emily could observe him being pretty much being grumpy about it.

_“Talon will try to intercept the delivery of a big battery thingy to the new Lumerico power plant. But ATHENA found out about it, so that’s why we’re here!”_

_I wonder how ATHENA did that._

“I heard about that plant. It’s fusion power, right? It’s supposed to generate entirely clean energy for Mexico.”

_“Something like that. I guess Talon has interest in the dirty energy business!”_

“So… it’s an escort mission.”

_“Eh, kinda, but we call it ‘payload’.”_

Emily blinked a few times and thought about that choice of name.

“I guess that’s descriptive enough, huh.”

_“Exactly!”_

The heroes got ready while they were talking and began advancing through the streets. She constantly lost track of McCree and Lena, as they were checking every side street, making sure the procession wouldn’t be ambushed. Reinhardt, Mercy and Soldier were guarding the ‘payload’ closely while Hana guarded the rear.

_That actually looks well thought out. They really are professionals! But aren’t they expecting a little more than just a skirmish with a setup like this…?_

Her observations only served to make her nervous again. Emily noticed that this part of Dorado was eerily quiet tonight.

“Don’t forget to hang back, Cassy! I don’t wanna lose you.”

_“Bwrauwr boo-wroop.”_

“Get sentimental after we’re done, okay?”

Cassy had been through the Overwatch tech department at some point in the last few months. Emily met a certain mister Lindholm at the time, a stuck-up dwarf-like character. He helped Cassy get rid of the command overwrite her aunt Charlotte had commissioned from Volskaya Consumer Robotics. Curiously enough, the little camera bot had been acting strange afterwards, showing a worrisome obsession with birds.

Emily was thinking back to how she found out what Cassy was humming all the time to be Swedish folk songs, when a sudden explosion made the redhead jump in her seat. Jack’s voice flared up in her earpiece.

_“Hostiles on 2 o’clock!”_

Some form of explosive had made direct contact with Reinhardt’s shield. Flames were still licking at the blue energy wall, but the German held it stoically without giving an inch.

_“Protect ze payload!”_

A full-fledged firefight erupted. There seemed to be half a dozen hostiles in Talon gear square in their way, all with their own shield carrier and everything. Tracer and Jesse soon came out of the woodwork, harassing the enemies from the side, forcing a slow retreat.

_“Advance! We have to get zis moving!”_

While the payload was back on the move, a few pulse rounds and revolver shots found their marks. It soon turned out that the Talon side had their own healer, projecting beams of yellow and purple light from what seemed like modified medical gloves.

“ _Onwards my friends!”_

Emily found herself quickly making some notes. She fully expected that Jack would’ve been the shot-caller, not Reinhardt! Goosebumps were crawling along her fangirl-skin, but it got worse. A loudly echoing rifle shot resounded in the streets below Cassy, making Emily jump and yelp in surprise. Luckily, she was still muted.

_“Sniper!”_

Hana had caught the shot in her defense matrix, still guarding the rear. The Korean sounded very professional for a change.

_“Triangulating the shot… It’s coming from the bell tower!”_

A cold shiver ran down Emily’s spine. She remembered tinkering on that one Dorado bell tower scene in her newest story, back before all of this began.

“You’ve got to be kidding me…”                          

Lena’s voice flared up in the comms almost instantly.

_“I’ll take care of her!”_

_“Are you sure, Lena Kleines?!”_

_“Never been surer! I’ll kick her butt!”_

 

 

* * *

 

 

Widow cursed under her breath.                     

“Blocking that shot was impossible!”

_“Maybe she has some kind of targeting software?”_

Ruby sounded a lot more into it once she was in position, well hidden from the enemy.

“Whatever. I won’t land any hits from this angle.”

_“Commander wanted you as distraction on the flank. There’s value in pinning that mech down, I guess?”_

Widow hesitated. She hated the thought of being relegated to harassment duty instead of actual assassination. Either way, orders were orders.

_“Maybe you can pick off one of the flankers? One and a half o’clock from your position, the one with the hat in the alley.”_

“You’re a mind reader.”

Widow looked around for her new target while putting on a smirk. DVa would have a hard time protecting that angle, since the hat wearer wasn’t standing anywhere near the payload.

“There you are…”

Her target was rolling around like an idiot right now. Nothing Widow couldn’t adjust to. She took aim.

_“Tracer entered the belltower! She’s… she’s fast!”_

Widow arched both eyebrows. In the span of a second, she brought Widow’s Kiss around and aimed at the stairwell. She could feel her heartbeat in that moment, waiting impatiently.

 

 

* * *

 

 

_“She’s at the top, taking aim at the stairs!”_

“I love a warm welcome!”

Lena had donned a sarcastic smirk and raced up the stairs, blinking along the way. She was careful to keep one charge up for when she reached the top.

It paid off as soon as she hit the end of the stairs. Blinking in anticipation, she managed to narrowly escape the bullet that would’ve split her skull.

“Wow! Oi there to you, too!”

The greeting was met with another shot. Lena only managed to evade a second time because she closely observed Widow’s trigger finger on Widow’s Kiss.

“Wait a sec, luv!”

Widow looked over her rifle, but apparently wasn’t inclined to lower it.

“What?”

“I want to talk.”

The assassin’s eyebrow twitched. She didn’t look happy at all. On the contrary, Widow looked positively livid.

“Talk?”

“Yeah!“

“You hid for two months and now you want to talk, **_Chérie_?** ”

“Well, I hadn’t planned to meet you at all, but-“

Lena had to stop herself and hurriedly blink out of the way. Another shot went wide into the Mexican night sky.

“Wow! I get you’re angry, but I’m here now, aren’t I? Now if you could stop shooting at-“

_“She’s not responding! You have to do something!”_

Another shot echoed through the night, accompanied by another light blue trail to the side.

_“That was your last blink!“_

To Lena, that wasn’t news. She kept track of her own blink charges by necessity. This was insane. Lena had no killing intent. She hadn’t even taken her weapons out! Lena wracked her brain as to how she could get Widow to listen.

 

 

* * *

 

 

For months, Tracer had avoided her. Reading Emily’s stories about the blue-skinned assassin had been more exciting than actually being herself. Now that Tracer finally crawled back out of her hole, all she seemed to want was to ‘talk’.

It frustrated Widow to no end.

“You really presume to _tell me_ what to do?”

“C’mon, I haven’t even drawn my guns!”

Widow snapped.

**“That’s the point!”**

“Look, if you could just listen-“

It was quite enough. Widow enacted an exact amount of 5lb pressure on the trigger of Widow’s Kiss. One of her 7.62x51mm calibers exited the chamber. Her victim realized the split second in which this was happening, but lacked the means to avoid the projectile. The bullet entered messily through the frontal lobe, punching a hole into the skull in the process. A propelling force intended to cover vast distances gave the bullet enough momentum to exit the head on the other side. Her empty-eyed victim’s body lost its will to stand upright and slumped to the ground in a fountain of gore.

Widow blinked.

She was a bit surprised. In her condition, she would’ve expected some form of hesitation.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Emily shrieked with terror, as she was repulsed away from the image on her notebook.

_Ohgodohgodohgodohgod-_

The red-haired girl clawed uselessly at the couch she was sitting on, as if she was trying to escape into it.

_She killed her!_

Her breathing was getting ragged. Emily started to hyperventilate and didn’t have any spare thought left to reach for her inhalator.

_Ohgod! I convinced her to do this! It’s my fault! Ohgodohgodoh-_

_“Phew!”_

Emily blinked a few times.

_“Feels like chugging a few too much at the pub. Jesus…”_

She quickly reached for her inhalator and tried to make sense of Lena’s voice in her head. No, in her comm link.

“L-Lena…?”

_“That’s me!”_

The corpse on Cassy’s video feed was gone, too, she noticed, as she breathed heavily through her inhalator.

“But… you’re dead!”

_“Nope. I’m right outside!”_

Emily turned around with urgency. Thick tears were beginning to roll down her cheeks either way after such a big shock. Lena did stand outside, jumping a few times and waving.

“God, you’re alright! I… I thought I lost you!”

_“D’aww, I’m perfectly fine! Juuust got a slight headache.”_

“But… how?!”

Lena stopped jumping and pointed at a wide area around herself.

_“You see this huge rectangle of light? Uh, that’s our… thingamajigga. Stuff… uh… ah! Spawn, yeah, spawn!”_

Disbelief was written squarely across Emily’s face.

“What’s a… spawn?”

_“Some kind of satellite nanotechnology stuff. Ridiculously expensive!”_

Having explained that, Lena turned around to leave.

“Huh? H-Hey, wait!”

_“Yes, luv?”_

“You… want to tell me, that this… ‘Spawn’… teleported your body here when you got shot and brought you back?”

_“Ayup.”_

They blinked at each other a few times. The Brit smiled without a care in the world.

“You have to be kidding…”

_“The wonders of modern medicine!”_

Emily mulled this revelation over in her head, but it just made no sense to her.

“This is insane… If you can revert a bullet to the head, why… why is this not everywhere?”

_“Like I said, ridiculously expensive! We only use it for missions.”_

“So… you’re basically invincible?”

_“Sure! It just sucks when the enemy is invincible, too. Which they are. Same technology.”_

“This could go on forever?”

_“Nah, there’s a time limit. We’re only approved for more if we can clear a checkpoint in that time. Oh, and it only works on 6 people.”_

“That… sounds awfully arbitrary.”

_“Mom explained the specifics to me once, but I can’t remember. Eh.”_

Lena shrugged and began to move back to the battlefield again.

“Hey, w-wait! You really want to go out again?! I mean, you just got shot!”

Lena playfully waved that comment away while leaving.

_“I get shot at all the time. It’s actually better this way than having a bullet removed physically. That shit hurts!”_

“Doesn’t it hurt anyway..?”

_“Nah. It’s a bit nauseating though.”_

“But… the trauma…?”

_“I’ve got a stellar therapist!”_

Poor Emily struggled to comprehend how anybody could be fine with this. Lena went out of sight soon enough, so the journalist had to rely on her camera bot again. She turned back to find that Cassy had already moved into position.

“Okay… so… yeah. Give me a moment… this is… too weird! Okay. Our approach didn’t work. Last time she listened to me when I groveled a bit before her. Maybe-“

_“No.”_

Emily blinked a few times, baffled.

_“I love you Emi, but you’re wrong on this. I was being stupid trying to talk to her in the first place. This isn’t what Widow wants. This isn’t me.”_

It took a moment before she could truly comprehend what Lena meant by this.

“You… you want to fight her?”

_“I’ll kick her butt so hard…”_

“I… guess that’s one way to get at her? But don’t you need your pistols for that?”

There was a certain vengeful determination in Lena’s voice, sending a shiver down her girlfriends’ spine.

_“Oh, I don’t intend to make that bitch respawn.”_

 

 

* * *

 

 

Widow hadn’t managed to accomplish much in the meantime.

_Who does she think I am?!_

That little escapade had completely taken her out of the zone. She was still furious at heart, keeping D.Va busy with an unrelenting barrage of shots.

Ruby on the comm link interrupted her grinding rage.

_“Looks like she wants another round.”_

“Good.”

Widow turned around and aimed at the stairs with uncharacteristic impatience. She didn’t have to wait long.

At first sight, the assassin applied pressure to the trigger, but only feigned the shot. It got the intended effect. Tracer blinked diagonally, more aggressive than before. She turned Widow’s Kiss around and fired her real first shot with inhuman speed.

_Suffer._

The bullet buried itself in her adversary’s shoulder. The force of the impact made her target recoil. Widow had aimed for the body and misjudged just slightly. Blood that had just splattered across the floor returned the whence it came as a wild spectacle of blue color indicated that Tracer would recall.

_Predictable._

Approximating the recall location was always one of her favorite challenges. Tracer reemerged, getting ready to go. Widow was faster. She aimed for the throat, to make the second ‘death’ of the day that much more painful, applied just enough pressure and…

Nothing.

Surprise washed over Widowmaker’s face. With all the turmoil in her head, she hadn’t realized that her magazine had run dry. A pit opened in her stomach.

_Merde!_

She lost her opening. A frantic attempt to reload wasn’t enough. Tracer had already blinked ahead and kicked straight up, sending Widow’s Kiss flying.

_Déjà vu_

She knew this move from months ago, when the two of them faced off in the Overwatch museum.  Widow’s amber eyes followed the weapon intently, as that was where Tracer would surely be.

That the rifle was useless without a magazine occurred Widow too late.

Something hit her hard in the head, hard enough to dislodge her visor. By the time she realized that her attention had been at the wrong place, Widow was already seeing stars from a square punch to the face. She stumbled backwards, stopped by the guardrail.

“Hah! She scores!”

Her head hurt and spun. Comprehending those words took her a few seconds. Especially since three Tracer’s were talking to her all at once.

“This one’s for breaking into my home!”

Tracer came after her, ready to throw the next punch. With still some wits about her, Widow narrowly slipped under the incoming right hook and hauled herself over the guardrail. Having jumped off the tower, she grappled mid-air to the top of a walkway above the streets, running alongside one of the many connected buildings.

The landing was not as gracious as she was used to, stumbling and disoriented as she was after being decked.

_“I can’t see you anymore, what is-”_

Widow took off her damaged visor and threw it away, basically silencing Ruby. Her mind was racing, trying to think of a way out, but that was already too late. The blinking noise above her head announced Tracers pursuit. The British girl spun-around in mid-air, landing far more graciously in front of Widow than she had.

“Where are you going, luv? We’re not even close to being done!”

The assassin quickly looked around. A high wall to the left, a sizeable drop to the right and Tracer blocking the straight path through. Nothing she couldn’t escape from. Widow briefly pondered on making a run for it. Then she chuckled.

_What a dreadfully boring thought._

“What’s with the sudden change of heart, Chérie?”

“I just remembered how much I _hate_ you!”

Widow smiled with amusement. She simply loved to tease Tracer into emotional outbursts.

“Cute.”

“And since you didn’t like me unarmed, I thought I’d bring your evil, bouncy butt down to my level!”

Widow had to fight back the cringe for a bit there.

“You didn’t think that would give you an advantage, did you?”

“I just gotcha pretty good a few seconds ago. So yeah, works pretty well!”

That retort made Widow’s eyebrow twitch. She put one foot in front of another and found the perfect balance, going into the only close-quarters combat stance she knew. Her voice grew soft and foreboding.

_“Il y a les jours avec et les jours sans.”_

Tracer clearly had no idea what those French words were trying to say, but Widow’s tone of voice gave her probably the wrong idea. A steady blush crept up on the little Brits cheeks.

“ ’s-scuse me?”

Widow sighed and rolled her amber eyes.

“Just… try again.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

Emily had an impish smile on her face, as she watched the start of the fight. Since Cassy got it all on film, she wouldn’t even have to distract herself by taking notes. She fully intended to re-watch the recording an unreasonable amount of times.

_I’m so gonna use that ‘evil, bouncy butt’ line as my new ringtone!_

The redhead was so excited; she could barely contain herself while cuddling into one of the couch pillows

A sudden alarm sound filled the quiet room. Emily got startled as all hell, being alone in the mission aircraft. She frantically looked around.

Then she remembered.

“Oh gosh, Popcorn’s ready!”

 

 

* * *

 

 

Tracer recovered from being excessively flustered by some unintendedly erotic sounding French and charged Widow. A first right hook was expertly evaded. As was a second, and a third. It looked like Widow had herself fully under control, weaving out of impact zones with the agility of a dancer.

Her movements transitioned seamlessly from one of those evasions to ramming a rising fist into Tracer’s gut.

“Urgh!”

The Brit stumbled backwards, holding onto her stomach, as if her it was about to empty itself frontally.

“Bit off more than you can chew, Chérie?”

“Jus’.. a sec, luv…”

It didn’t look like Widow intended to wait. She advanced fast and whirled around for a violet heeled kick to Tracer’s face. The Brit vanished before that could happen.

_Not above using her toy, I see._

She re-emerged a short time later, 3 seconds into the past, still clutching to her stomach

“Oi, no… no fair!”

“You’re the one saying that?”

“I didn’t want-woah!“

Tracer couldn’t finish the sentence. Instead, she narrowly dodged to the side as Widow’s grappling hook shot past her head. She imagined what that metal claw would’ve done to her face and shot Widow a grim look.

“You really wanna play dirty, huh luv?”

“Do us both a favor and stop being naïve.”

Lena’s eyebrows narrowed. Then she made ready to blink.

“Oh, it’s ON!”

 

 

* * *

 

 

Ever since Tracer amped up the stakes by integrating her temporal abilities, the fight evolved into something akin to an underground boxing match, only with more blue aftereffects and spurts of blood. Emily’s eyes were glued to the notebook while feverishly munching on her bowl of popcorn.

_It’s crazy how much fun they’re having! …in a gritty, ‘I’ll smash your face in’-way._

She was a bit scared, for both of them. Even if this was necessary for their relationship to develop.

Just then, another sudden sound startled Emily. It was dull and metallic. She stopped with her hand in the popcorn bowl and looked around.

_What was that?_

The sound repeated itself. Emily couldn’t properly hear where it was coming from, so she took her headphones off that were transmitting Cassy’s audio.

_It’s… coming from up top?_

Emily slowly realized that somebody – or something – was _on_ the ship. Each step represented another metallic sound. While the battle was still ongoing on the small screen of her notebook, she couldn’t really pay attention. Emily grew scared for herself. A shiver ran down her spine as she realized: There was nowhere to hide in the aircraft.

_Crap._

However, Emily had a technique that almost always, usually, sometimes worked in situations like this: She enacted the ancient ninja art of sitting still and shutting the fuck up.

A hatch opened on the ceiling, allowed a cool winter breeze to enter the aircraft. With a dull thud, the hatch closed again soon after the intruder entered, gracefully holding onto a ceiling ladder. The dark figure ultimately dropped down.

Unluckily for Emily, this intruder saw straight through her ancient ninja art. It took her all of three seconds to spot the redhead. As they looked at each other, Emily’s eyes grew wide.

_Crap! ...wait. That can't..._

“Aunt Moira?!”

The Irish woman laughed cheerily.

“You remember your auntie, how nice of you.”

Moira smirked at Emily’s confused expression and approached with measured efficiency.

“What are you doing here? This is an Overwatch aircraft!”

“Yes, and they still build them as they used to…”

Moira looked up to the hatch for a second.

“…but I digress. I’m here for you.”

“You… you are?”

Emily blinked a few times. She hadn’t seen aunt Moira in what felt like forever.

“Yes. I heard that my little girl not only dates an Overwatch agent, but now also aspires to accompany them on missions. It was impossible to resist a visit.”

A creeping suspicion made Emily wary for a moment.

“You know about… Don’t tell me you helped aunt Charlotte mess with my camera bot?!”

Moira seemed to be confused. She had expected another kind of accusation, but her niece was probably too trusting to accuse her of more sinister intentions.

“Why ever would I do that? You know that I despise her side of the family.” Moira wrinkled her nose. “I told your mother that she shouldn’t marry into that mess.”

“Don’t talk about father’s family like that…”

Emily nibbled on her lower lip, prompting a sigh from her aunt. She moved a crooked hand into Emily’s red locks and tousled them about.

“Oh, I know I know. Your father is a nice man, and I wouldn’t have such a cute niece otherwise.”

Emily tried to get rid of the hand.

“Hey, stop treating me like a child!”

“Sorry, little one.”

“What do you really want anyway?!”

The Irish women just took the liberty of sitting down beside her niece. One crooked hand went into Emily’s bowl of popcorn to grab some. She then pointed at the screen.

“Why, what else than to enjoy the show.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

It was much harder for Widow to keep up since she goaded her opponent into using her temporal powers. She tried to keep her left leg from shaking after accidentally hitting that darned metal thing on Tracer’s chest with it. Still, she made that insolent brat pay for every advance. They both already took more hits than either of them was willing to count.

_At this rate, I’ll be done in a few minutes. I need to make some time to catch my breath._

“Satisfied already?”

Widow managed an infuriatingly arrogant smile, even though she was running out of breath. It had its intended effect, judging by Tracers fist clenching. The little Brit didn’t fare any better herself though, trying to catch her breath while she most likely waited in a safe distance for her blinks to recharge.

“You wish! I’m not even close to done with you!”

Widow anticipated another round of attacks following Tracer’s announcement, but they never came.

_I need to find a way to disable that toy on her chest._

“You must really hate me.”

“I... I don't.”

Widow blinked.

_"Excusez-moi?"_

"I don't really hate you!"

In a way, they were both surprised. Widow arched an eyebrow, listening intently.

“I hate what you’ve become. What they’ve done to you. What you now think is right. I hate that you killed so many of our friends!”

“This again?”

There was another outburst out of the little Brit.

“Yes, this again! And deep down, you feel the same!”

This was shaping to be an overly amusing break in the action for Widow.

“Oh really, do I now?”

“Yes!”

“Why, I never knew! You must surely know me better than I do.”

“I guess I do. I saw how sad you were when you visited your husband's grave.”

Widow could feel herself tense up. An awkward pause set in.

“How?”

Tracer fidgeted around for a moment, as if she wanted to go easy on Widow.

“Well, it’s… kind of all over the internet.”

The beginnings of a blush warmed Widow's cheeks. She clenched her fists.

_…I’ll find and kill whoever did this._

“But that doesn’t matter right now! What matters is that the old you would be horrified by what happened to herself, your husband and your friends! I know you have regrets!”

The assassin tried her hardest to make sense of things. Being seen by her arch rival at her most vulnerable state was a humiliating feeling. Worse, Tracer practically pitied her for it! She could feel her wrath return at being analyzed like a psychopath in a doctor’s office. Tracer tried her best to appeal to that emotional part in Widow; the part that wasn’t dead yet. In response, Widow’s voice grew cold.

“You know _nothing_.”

“I know that you want to feel something! You’re having fun doing this with me, isn’t that right?”

Widow inclined her head and glowered at Tracer.

“What’s your point?”

“My point is – you can have it!”

Tracer stopped for a second. The heroine trembled with how vulnerable she was feeling.

“If you just stop the killing, I’ll be fine with it! Come with me and we can tussle whenever you feel like it, however you want!”

There was a moment of baffled silence. Widow was shocked, so much so that her fists completely opened up. Tracer on the other hand looked like a kid that just gave you a present and now impatiently waited on how you liked it.

Widow shook her head and smirked. She broke her stance and walked over to the little Brit.

“Well, I’ve had quite enough of this.”

“T-That’s… that’s a yes, right?”

“Oh of course…”

Tracer was beyond relieved, already releasing the tension in her body.

“…although I am a bit disappointed.”

Widow was standing about two meters away and stopped with a heavy sigh.

“Don’t worry luv, we can continue whenever you want!”

The French woman smirked.

“I know.”

Widow raised her hand and shot her grappling hook at Lena’s head a second time. The little Brit dodged out of harm’s way with complete surprise. Her hazelnut eyes followed the steel rope, watching the hook grip onto a concrete wall. Tracer quickly turned back to Widow, but the assassin’s body already collided with her before she could get back into the zone.

The force that pulled Widow to the grappling hook hauled her along for a ride. Shortly thereafter, Widow disengaged the hook and pushed Tracer away into a forward momentum.

Tracer's lithe body colliding with the wall looked particularly painful. She cried out in pain, sparks flew from the temporal contraption on her chest.

Widow on the other hand landed on her feet without much effort, a thoroughly satisfied smirk on her face. She walked over slowly as her opponent pitifully collapsed against the wall.

“I told you to stop being naïve, _Chérie_.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

Emily felt a bit bad to be aroused by all that, given that her girlfriend was actively being beaten up.

“That was _so_ evil!”

“She’s always like that.”

“Just like I imagined!”

“That’s the first time I’ve seen her having fun during it though.”

“She does love bullying Lena.”

“Speaking of which, your girlfriend is getting back up.”

Emily felt a sense of pride well in her chest. Even though she enjoyed Widow being evil, she just had to root for her personal hero.

“Of course she is! She’s the best!”

“I can imagine, given she has that much stamina in bed…”

Moira looked over and wiggled with her eyebrows. Emily just coughed into her scarf and got a dumb smile. Then she blinked a few times, just now realizing that something about her aunt was off.

“Wait a second… aunt Moira?”

“Hmm?”

“Stop eating all the popcorn!”

Moira blinked back at her with a mouthful.

“Second of all, how come you know so much about Widowmaker?”

Her aunt swallowed and transitioned into a smirk.

“Oh, that. I’m obviously working for Talon now.”

“You’re working for… wow.”

The two redheads looked at each other. Moira normally wasn’t capable of getting a guilty conscience, but Emily was the grand exception in terms of guilt tripping.

“Hey, even the bad guys need doctors! They also paid better. And had better equipment. And wouldn’t interfere with my work. And weren’t imploding.”

“Didn’t you have a fiancé in Overwatch?”

Moira’s mood soured almost instantly. Her voice went into a low grumble and she looked away, back to the screen.

“Let’s not talk about her.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

“Achoo!”

Angela sniffled a bit, still healing with both hands while pushing the payload.

“Wat is wrong Angie?”

Reinhardt wasn’t capable of turning his head to look over his shoulder, so he just kept concentrating on the enemy. He sounded concerned, unlike Jack.

“I told you your gear is not fit for winter nights!”

“It’s not the gear. I can manage, gentlemen.”

Reinhardt laughed aloud.

“Somebody must be zinking about you then!”

D.Va flew in at that moment and continued to slowly advance alongside the cart. She fired her pulse guns at the enemy shield in unison with Jack.

“Must be her cute Egyptian girlfriend! You do know what she’s probably doing while thinking of you, right Mommy?”

The doctor went as red as a traffic light.

“H-Hana! Not now! Where’s… where’s Widowmaker?”

“Don’t know! Lena forced her off the tower and followed.”

“I do hope she’s okay…”

Jack grunted.

“Miss Oxton can take care of herself.”

Hana laughed.

“Yeah, she always beats you in practice!”

“You try to shoot a damn youngster going that fast!”

“Oh, I don’t need to shoot her to beat her.”

“What?”

Hana’s grin became positively dirty.

“I know aaall her weak spots!”

“What in all hells does that even mean?”

“I can make her… uh… giggle.”

Jack hadn’t been so confused in a long time. Judging by Angie’s ongoing blush, she was probably the only one getting the innuendo here. The doctor cleared her throat.

“Everyone concentrate! We should be able to close this out soon. The enemy healer seems to be missing. Let’s… just hope Lena knows what she’s doing.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

Widow stumbled backwards from a punch to the face. Warm blood ran down from her forehead. They had been at it for ten minutes again. Stamina was beginning to fail both of them, each getting more sluggish as time went on, allowing for more openings and therefore more hits.

“Just… give up already!”

Every ounce of grace had left this fight some time ago. They were both panting audibly at this point, bodies bloodied and bruised. Widow’s legs were shaking, and she barely held her stance. Tracer’s temporal device was still spitting sparks, unable to be used for combat, yet still somehow holding her anchored to this time and space.

“You’re so sweet… thinking this is over.”

Widow managed another arrogant smile. She couldn’t feel one side of her face anymore and her vision was beginning to blur, but she would be damned if she gave a single inch to this insolent brat.

“I offer you all you want... the fuck is wrong with you?!”

“Says the one demanding I surrender?”

They were both staring daggers into each other, neither willing to back down. That said, Tracer was stumbling by now, and every so often threatened to fall over. Her hair was more disheveled than usual, if that was even possible, and her outfit was torn in places where Widow’s heels had made an impact.

Given all of that, she still somehow managed to ball her fists.

“If you won’t listen, then I’ll… I’ll just have to pummel some sense into your dense head!”

Tracer pumped herself up with a vengeance. You could see the fire in her hazelnut eyes as she roared a battle cry. She forced her battered body to run at her foe in a last-ditch effort, pulling back her fist in preparation of a groundbreaking right hook.

“GHAAAH!”

Widow watched the little Brit running up to her and smiled gratefully. She waited for the right moment, spun around and rammed her violet heel into the side of the smaller woman’s head.

Tracer unceremoniously crashed to the ground.

There was no sound other than Widow’s exhausted breathing. Even the distant gunshots had stopped. Widow moved up to her beaten adversary and fell to her knees, no longer capable of supporting her own weight. The moon was out on this Mexican winter night, shining down on the two of them. A chilly breeze caressed them and eased the pain. She didn't know how much time went by until she finally said something. Her voice sounded just as strained as the rest of her body. It was a miracle that she had been able to fight as long as she did.

“You lost.”

Tracer didn’t look like she was capable of getting up anymore. Her voice was a bit more raspy than Widow's.

“Sure did.”

“A spider doesn’t negotiate with the fly.”

A pair of hazelnut eyes looked up to her. There was an exhausted smile on Tracer’s lips.

“Just… takes what she wants, right?”

Widow smiled back.

“Oui.”

There was a small laugh coming from below, as Tracer realized Emily had been right all along. Maybe all she had to really do was give up and grovel a bit. Either way, it was finally over. Tracer’s eyes were unfocused again and she tried her best not to run into a coughing fit.

“Gotta treat… ya to dinner. To celebrate, y’know?”

Widow was surprised for a moment, then shook her head. She couldn’t get rid of the smile even if she tried. There was this odd feeling. It was weird and new and nice.

“Foolish girl…”

“I know this great… steakhouse on Park Lane… They got the best… crab cocktails.”

“Crab cocktails? Really...?”

Widow giggled alongside the little Brit now. How could she not? Tracer wasn’t sad or angry like usual after a loss. They were actually sharing a friendly moment for once after having fun together. It was serene.

“Whaddiya say, tomorrow at 6?”

Tracer somehow managed to raise a bruised hand on top of Widow’s and began to gently caress it with her thumb. Widow quickly grew fond of the warm feeling.

Like an unbidden guest, Reapers words echoed in her mind.

_“She’ll be the end of you.”_

They had haunted her for months. Yet she couldn't help but fall for Tracer's smile. It felt like salvation.

_Maybe the end won’t be so bad._

“I’ll be there.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

_ At the same time, in a bustling canteen far, far away. _

_Sagrada:_ “Are the preparations finished?”

 _Tiff:_ “Yes. What’s the giant Pachimari plush for...?”

Sombra snorted audibly and continued to tap away at her holographic chat window. She was sitting in the company canteen right now, a steaming coffee cup in front of her.

 _Sagrada:_ “Extra embarrassment.”

 _Tiff:_ “Embarrassment? I thought we’d be helping her?!”

A frown replaced her smile. Tiffany’s lack of humor was concerning.

_I should’ve picked a more mischievous partner in crime. Speaking of which…_

Something also quite concerning came up. Someone familiar was approaching Sombra from across the canteen.

 _Sagrada:_ “Oh, don’t you worry your little head. Just stick to the plan.”

She typed a bit faster to be done before her ‘friend’ arrived and then turned around to face him.

“Hammond, team mate, hombre! What’s up?”

“DON’T ya ‘Hammond’ me, human!”

A small shiver ran down her spine.

_When faced with a gorilla, don’t show weakness!_

Sombra had read that piece of advice on the internet. Actually doing that was an entirely different story.

“Ah, sorry, my fault! Doomfist of course, hombre. What’s going on?”

Hammond reached her and shoved his finger into her face.

“YA promised me chaos for half o’ the world! Humans were supposed ta die! Instead, we haven’t moved A SINGLE FINGAH IN A WHOLE MONTH!”

Sombra tried to keep her composure while being assaulted with gorilla spit.

“W-Well, you see, there are preparations-”

“For months, we travel around so you can have a nice chat with some PRINCE or PRINCESS…”

The gorilla was grinding his teeth. He snapped and grabbed her tightly by the collar of her jacket, hard enough to make her wheeze for air.

“Ta hell with yer preparations!”

“N-Now now, we can talk about this!”

“NO! NO MORE TALKING! IF YOUURGH-“

Hammond was quite rudely interrupted by the sound of his own cracking skull. Sombra watched the insane gorilla’s face go all weird like and squished together. Her now former partner in crime let go of her collar and slumped to the floor in front of her. Sombra coughed a few times and rubbed her throat after being released of that incredibly tight grip.

Reaper and Akande were contemplating over Hammond’s twitching body.

“What is this?”

**“It is… was… part of the team.”**

“Since when do we take monkeys?”

**“He came with your weapon and wanted to kill the other monkey.”**

“Trouble in paradise.”

**“No big loss though.”**

“Maybe. It had quite the thick head.”

Akande shook his hand, as if it was hurting a tiny bit from smashing the great ape’s skull in.

“I hate gorillas.”

**“Who doesn’t.”**

The big African cyborg knelt down to reclaim his trademark weapon, The Doomfist.

“Could you please see to it that this thing is being removed? I have to talk to our lovely Miss Colomar for a moment.”

**“Let’s get this over with.”**

Sombra watched Reaper drag her former colleague out of the canteen while still catching her breath. He did that only after pumping the beast full of Hellfire Shotgun shells though, just to be sure. That ensured quite the commotion in the canteen, with many curious eyes watching the procedure. Half a minute later, the stench of bloody gorilla was the only thing left to remind someone of poor Hammond. Besides that, there was a tiny bit of awkwardness in the air.

“Thank you, señor. I don’t know if PETA would approve, but that was, uh, just in time!”

Sombra rubbed the back of her head uneasily and laughed awkwardly. This was the first time Akande came to visit her after his long overdue prison break.

_He’s probably not mad at me, is he?_

 “I know of a few other things that would have been satisfying, given they had happened on schedule.”

_Mierda._

The real Doomfist now lorded over her with a grudge. She almost wished for Hammond back. Almost.

“...sorry señor.”

“I trust that you had better things to do?”

Sombra straightened up and put her best car-sellers smile on.

“You might say so, if you hear about what I’ve been occupied with! It’s concerning a… little project of mine.”

Akande raised an eyebrow.

“Project?”

“I’ve spent the last few months preparing to devastate the English-speaking world.”

The hulking African inclined his head, evaluating his subordinate with increasing interest upon what he had just heard.

“Universal chaos you say?”

Sombra grinned over both ears. She knew what her boss liked to hear. With a few swift motions, she summoned a bunch of pre-prepared holograms into the air. They presented news articles, among them even some from the Evening Standard.

“Of course, señor! Chaos leads to opportunities for Talon.”

“That goes without saying. Even though I am more interested in testing the populace.”

Doomfist studied the holograms intently, quickly catching up on the pattern of Sombra’s plan. He arched an eyebrow in disbelief.

“That is both unnecessarily complicated and ingeniously evil.”

Sombra giggled.

“Couldn’t have said it any better myself, señor!”

He looked down to Sombra in a chiding manner.

“But didn’t you make it too obvious already?”

“I found that the ordinary reader is surprisingly dense when it comes to identifying huge hints.”

They both looked at the reader for a second, then back to each other.

“You should leave the wall breaking to me.”

“Physically or metaphorically?”

“Both.”

“Okay.”

Sombra shrugged and smiled.

“So, where is the catch with your plan, Miss Colomar?”

“It’s almost done. To finish up, I just need a tiiiny favor.”

Doomfist inclined his head even further.

“That favor being?”

Sombra smiled mischievously at her boss, her eyes sparkling with pure evil.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope this chapter wasn't too long in the end. There was just so much I wanted to fit in there!  
> I've tinkered on it for months. I hope you can forgive me the delay, dearest reader. 八(＾□＾*)  
> But tell me, was it worth the wait? ♡
> 
> P.S. I'm not gonna translate that French. Let's all just imagine Widow said something reeeally dirty ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)  
> P.SS. Let's just get this one out of the way: Dicks out for ~~Harambe~~ Hammond, people.


	12. The Fanservice awakens

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In a galaxy far far away... Widow and Tracer are having serious compatibility problems.

A full moon brightened the scenery on this Dorado night. There was no sound apart from a whistling breeze every now and then.

“So…”

Lena didn’t really pay attention to how long she had been lying here. Her body was still rigid, but the numbness was slowly fading. The cold soon replaced it. Through it all, Lena still felt amazed by the turn of events, for example that they were still holding hands. Widow gazed into the distance, as if contemplating.

“Hm?”

Lena squeezed her rivals hand.

“How long do you think until they find us?”

Widow thought for a second.

“Any moment.”

“Bother…”

“Quite.”

They chuckled lightly. Lena felt appropriately encouraged to continue her attempts at small talk.

“It’s fucking freezing, isn’t it?”

Widow thought about this, again, for a moment.

“I… don’t even feel the cold.”

The little Brit blinked a few times. She cocked her head and observed Widow for a while. Then she piped up with an epiphany.

“Ohh, that explains a lot.”

Widow arched an eyebrow and looked down.

“It does?”

Lena grinned in return.

“Yeah!”

Upon seeing the French assassins puzzled look, Lena raised her hand off Widow’s. It was a bit taxing, but she managed. With one finger and a goofy giggle, she poked into an exposed, blueish, squishy breast. 

“I wondered why you wouldn’t cover that up.”

The covering fabric had probably been torn at some point during the fight. Widow stared at her incredulously. She even blushed a little.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 “So… tell me if I got that wrong…”

Right now Mercy was caring for a thoroughly beat up Tracer.

“…she broke each of your fingers on that hand _after_ agreeing on a date, yes?”

Lena was lying on the corner couch in the aircraft and used an arm to cover her eyes in shame. They only had dim lighting. According to the pilot, they were running low on power for the trip back home. It served to make the crew a bit sleepy, to the point that Jesse and old man Reinhardt were already half an hour into their siesta.

“Ugh… please don’t ask.”

The team had found Lena almost battered to death up on one of the walkways in Dorado.  Angela looked at Emily, silently mouthing something amounting to ‘You knew about this?’. The redhead was squirming about instead of answering and caressed Lena’s head in her lap. That just prompted a frustrated sigh from the doctor. Jack didn’t appear to be particularly happy about this development either.

“Does anybody else see anything wrong with this? I mean, collusion with the enemy? Seriously? Besides, does nobody remember what happened to Lacroix’s last fiancé?”

They collectively ignored him. He was making a lot of sense, but Hana, Angela and Emily were all too busy secretly thinking about all the lewd things that would be following this arrangement.

“Well, I have no anesthetics on hand. Either we wait until we are at the base, or this will hurt. A lot.”

“… I can handle it.”

“Hana dear, would you be so kind and take my staff? Just aim it at her hand and press the button.”

Daydreaming at Emily’s side, Hana took a moment to realize the request, so Jack answered in her stead.

“Come on, she’s not even remotely qualified to do that!”

“Don’t be mean, Jack.”

“Uh,” Hana started, “I hate to agree with baldy over there, but he’s got a point...”

Hana nibbled on her lower lip. She really hated to agree with ‘baldy’.

“It’s not that hard. I believe that you are adept at pointing and clicking, yes? If not, we could just wake Jesse. He’ll do it.”

“What?! No way! I’ll do it 10 times better than captain pervert over there!”

Hana promptly stood up to take the Valkyrie staff while the doctor suppressed a smug grin.

“There are two buttons halfway down the staff. Just aim and press the top one.”

The little Korean studied the medical tool up and down.

“Okay?”

Hana did as she was asked to, aimed and pressed the button. A familiar, yellow healing beam arced onto Lena’s hand. She dragged it around a bit, but the connection just bent slightly.

“That’s it, now just-“

Playing around too much, Hana managed to switch the connection to Mercy’s head.

“…Hana…”

Emily and Lena snickered stupidly.

“Sorry Mom!”

Driven by the tired gaze of the doctor, Hana quickly fixed her aiming. As soon as it was back in the right spot, Mercy prepared to relocate the first broken finger.

“Happy thoughts now, sweetie.”

With a sickening crunch, the finger was put back into place. Emily and Hana flinched along with Lena, who squeezed one eye shut, but the healing beam made it somewhat bearable. Lena laughed a little.

“That’s… not so bad.”

“I’m glad you’re having fun. There’s still four to go.”

The same procedure followed with the next finger. Easily growing bored however, the gamer in Hana naturally played around a bit.

“What does this button do?”, she asked.

Lena’s next finger, to the dismay for everyone’s eardrums, was put back into place under a vibrating, blue beam.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Widow tensed up while being treated. Moira raised an eyebrow.

“Is something wrong?”

“…I just felt a disturbance. As if a million voices focused into one suddenly cried out and were suddenly silenced.”

The Irish physician studied her with sharp eyes, thoroughly intrigued. Then she smirked in her usual, infuriating manner.

“That’s oddly specific. Is this about your new girlfriend?”

Widow quickly grew to regret opening her mouth.

_Why did I say that?_

Amber eyes looked the other way with annoyance. Widow made an effort to hiss her words quietly, so that the rest of the team wouldn’t be able to eavesdrop.

“She’s _not_ my girlfriend.”

The rest of the Talon team was a bit less beat up than she was and thus didn’t suspect that anything had happened out of the ordinary. They knew that there had been a skirmish with agent Tracer and that was that. She was known to have those, after all. Only Moira suspected that something was off.

“Still, you have that kind of… connection to her, I reckon.”

She thought it impossible, but Moira’s smirk seemed to grow more infuriating by the second. Widow’s eyebrow twitched and she turned her head even farther away than before.

“Ridiculous.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

_ Featuring https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2K7kJH9hWA _

Even though it was still December, the days started to become longer again, so the sun wasn’t gone yet. The Christmas snow however had already melted, thanks to a few degrees celsius above the freezing point. There were more jackets than mantles out today. This included a girl wearing a jacket made of brown leather and tight, blue jeans to match.

_“I’m a rebel just for kicks now!”_

In an age where everything was wireless, white cables went up to her ears. The girl was striding along the walkway while a catchy, all-time classic pumped through those cables. People all over looked at her in curiosity for her retro style. The upbeat choice of song wasn’t an accident; the girl tried to pump herself up to some courage.

_“Might be over now, but I feel it still!”_

It wasn’t long until she reached her destination. Her jaw almost dropped as she saw her highlight of the day: The Lady waiting for her.

_“We could fight a war for pea-“_

The girl quickly unplugged her ears. Her date wore a white fur jacket, hinting at an extravagant, black evening dress underneath. She wore her hair in a loose ponytail, with strands of it falling by the side of a lovely face. There was a lot more color to the skin of her date than the girl remembered, probably as to not stand out too much. Only the Lady’s cold demeanor betrayed the makeup-façade.

_Come on, you can do it Lena!_

All her preparation for this moment threatened to melt away into a nervous mess. The girl gathered her charm.

“Hey there, gorgeous!”

Some time went by. The Lady stood still in silence, crossing her arms expectantly.

“Wanna go in?”

They stared at each other for another moment.

_Did I do… something wrong?_

The girl could feel her nervousness creeping up her ears.

“What’s wrong?”

Her date seemed to have waited for that question.

“You’re _late_.”

There was enough venom in those words to kill a mammoth.

_Yikes! She makes it sound like a capital offense._

“Ah, yeah, guess I’m a few minutes off haha!”

“I’ve waited for **twenty minutes**.”

“Woah! It’s that late?”

The girl stopped to check her watch. The hands on the clock were telling a similar story.

“Good heavens…”

“ _What took you so long_?”

The girl slowly looked up from the watch and rubbed the back of her head. She managed an awkward laugh. People were walking by, whispering about the squabbling pair, maybe even recognizing the girl.

“Ah, haha! I… totally didn’t know what to wear. Must’ve taken me longer than I noticed. Stupid, right?”

Amber eyes glowered at her for an endlessly torturous moment.

“Oui.”

A sigh of frustration followed. Despite herself, the Lady went up to the girl, lifting her arm slightly in anticipation. The girl blinked in confusion.

“Are you going to let me stand here even longer?”

The girl visibly didn’t understand what was expected of her. Then it clicked.

“Oh! Oh gee, of course not! Sorry!”

With a slight blush, she linked arms with her date. They were really close now all of the sudden, a pair for everyone to see, bringing the girl much excitement and a tiny bit of anxiety. After she steadied her breath, they finally went inside.

 

 

* * *

 

 

“You really think it’ll work out between the two?”

Her aunt Moira didn’t sound very convinced.

“I can gauge Lena pretty well. She’ll come around, but… well, you know Widow better than I do.”

They were walking along the Overwatch campus and Emily, sighing heavily, looked like she lost some precious hours of sleep tonight.

“You’re her doctor, right? What do you think?”

Some people recognized Moira as they were chatting along, but nobody lifted a finger against her. While her affiliation with Talon was rumored, she was more widely known as minister of genetics for the science metropolis of Oasis in Iraq.

“Widow is unfeeling. I’m surprised that your plan even got this far.”

“You know that’s not true…”

Moira studied her niece out of the corner of her right, sharp eye.

“Let me rephrase that: She isn’t supposed to feel anything apart from the joy of popping heads. If she’d be interested in me, I’d be rather worried for my life.”

Moira developed an amused smile and continued.

“Your girlfriend is being suicidal, letting her wait like that.”

Emily chewed on her lower lip for a second.

“I told Lena to hurry, but she was such a giddy mess! I mean it was cute, but ugh!”

“Too long in the bathroom?”

“No, we couldn’t decide what she should wear.”

“And a leather jacket was the answer? Oh dear.”

“You don’t think she’ll like it…?”

It was painfully obvious that Emily had been the decider in the debate of what to wear. Moira contemplated on how to let her niece down as gently as possible while they were slowly walking down a path to one of the dormitories.

“She’ll probably decide to be in charge of your girlfriend’s wardrobe, given this goes any further.”

“That doesn’t sound _too_ bad.”

“The emphasis was on ‘probably’. The other outcomes are worse. She’s a sadist after all.”

“Sadist?”

Emily tried to look worried and failed. She was much too curious about this, given her hobby.

“Oh, absolutely. Ask her assistant. Somebody suggested we hire one to absorb her ill temper. That poor girl now constantly runs around the compound on some fools errant. ”

 “Wow, that sounds awful! Who would be crazy enough to do such a job?”

_…I want that job._

Emily laughed awkwardly.

“Surprisingly, the girl seems to enjoy it.”

“A masochist, huh? That’s not really Lena’s thing, though…”

“Widow is probably about to drive your girlfriend absolutely mad. That shouldn’t surprise you though, given her last two visits at your residence.”

“Oh, I gave Lena some tips in case that happens…”

A plane was flying overhead, briefly interrupting their conversation. Emily took her phone out for that moment and unlocked the screen.

_Still no connection… Is that thing broken?_

“I completely forgot to ask, Emily dear…”

“Huh?”

“What are you going to do about your inheritance?”

Emily quickly tucked her phone away again. She stared quizzically at her aunt.

“Inheritance? Did something happen to Mum and Dad?”

“Heavens, of course not! Wait, you don’t know?”

“Don’t know what?”

Emily was getting irritated, right as they reached their destination. The dormitory doorway opened before them, producing a doctor and her patient. It looked like Hana was being chewed out at this very moment.

“…don’t hunch over like that while playing anymore. Your back pain will just get worse with age.”

“’Yeah yeah…”

As the four of them ran into each other, all the conversations stopped in mild surprise. Hana was particularly eager to get out of her predicament, so her surprise wore off the quickest.

“Emi, there you are!”

She went in for a hug with Emily.

“Hi Hana! Sorry, we ran a bit late.”

“Don’t be sorry, I had Mom over anyway.”

Emily returned the hug briefly. It was hard to get used to all the cute heroes she was privy to enjoying these past months. At least she was getting better at suppressing her fangirl tendencies.

“Did something happen?”

Hana’s face turned sour for a moment.

“You ever got, like, a really awful cramp?”

“Just regularly awful ones I think.”

“Mine just now was super awful! I couldn’t even get out of bed!”

“Yikes. So you called Mum over to help?”

“Yup! Who’s your friend by the way?”

Looking to their side, they just now noticed Moira and Angela staring at each other intently. Invisible lightning sparked between their eyes.

“Uh, that’s… my aunt. I… I think we should go in?”

Hana apparently agreed, as she just tucked Emily into the dormitory by pulling her sleeve. The main door closed behind them. They didn’t look back and hurried up the stairs. Hana shivered a bit.

“Geez, it looked like they’d be at each other’s throats any second now!”

“…and not in the romantic kinda way.”

“Ah whatever. Let’s just go up, I got some kickass games prepared for us!”

“Awesome!”

Emily wasn’t really the type to play many video games, but who wouldn’t like to play with Hana?

 

 

* * *

 

 

_Tap._

They were sitting around for what seemed like an eternity, waiting for their food.

_Tap._

Time went by in an agonizing manner as Widow’s finger tapped on the table in a slow rhythm.

_Tap._

Trying to strike a conversation hadn’t been very successful until now.

_Tap._

Widow was less than accommodating, obviously offended by something.

“I said I’m sorry, okay?”

_Tap._

Widow merely graced her with a stinging gaze.

“I really didn’t mean to let you wait.”

_Tap._

“Also, if I had known you wanted a romantic entrance like that, I would’ve worn my blazer instead of the jacket.”

_Tap._

“Oh and I would’ve gotten flowers! I should’ve gotten flowers…”

_Tap._

Widow didn’t seem impressed, swirling around her glass of Le Verssant Grenache.

“Yeah, you’re right. That would’ve been a bit much for a steakhouse…”

_Tap._

“Anyway. I’m really happy that you came out here, you know?”

The tapping of the finger stopped.

“I was kinda surprised that you would accept in the first place.”

_Tap._

“Positively surprised!”

The tapping stopped again. Tracer tried her brightest smile and the oldest compliment in the book.

“You look really beautiful today, you know that luv?”

And it was true. Removing the fur jacket revealed that the black evening dress left Widow's shoulders and upper back completely bare for Lena's eyes. Widow on the other hand looked elsewhere. She was in the process of formulating a fiery retort when the waiter arrived with their plates, announcing their dishes.

“The Snake River Wagyu for the lady and Iberico Beef, dry aged for 21 days for mademoiselle.”

“Thanks!”

“Merci.”

Normally Lena would’ve just ordered a burger, but Emily had cautioned her not to. It wouldn’t be chic, or something like that. As a result, they both got probably the most expensive pieces of meat on the menu. Right now the delicious looking beefsteak partly made up for her probably being flat broke after this.

“Bon appetit!”, Lena exclaimed joyfully, putting the pronunciation in all the wrong places.

Widow just grimaced slightly as her language got butchered.

 

 

* * *

 

 

They were busy staring holes into each other’s heads.

“ **What** are you doing here?”

Angela was the first to talk, her voice quietly sizzling. Moira on the other hand had an aloft tone of voice, only betrayed by her narrowed, sharp eyes.

“Why, I am visiting my niece.”

“You really have the gall to show your face on Overwatch property?”

“I’m not committing a crime, am I?”

One of the doctor’s eyes twitched.

“You have committed enough _for a lifetime_.”

Moira’s sharp grin grew wide.

“Ah, but you see, all I ever did was help people. We physicians are not responsible for what happens afterwards.”

Angela narrowed her eyes further.

“That convenience does not extend to your enhancement operations.”

“But it does. How else would we further mankind than by experimenting on enhancements?”

Angela balled her fists. Her voice was steadily increasing in volume.

“Advancing, progressing, pushing boundaries. That’s all you ever cared about!”

Moira frowned.

“The state of you, my dear.”

Angela glowered at the Irish woman. She steadied herself and swallowed some of the bile she was thinking about. They were in a public setting after all.

“You haven’t changed one bit. Always composed, devoid of any emotion other than mild amusement and contempt.”

Moira suppressed a smirk.

_And it’s absolutely driving you wild._

“It’s a way to live by, if you ask me.”

“And how I regret ever living with you.”

“Ever since you found out that you’re into women half your age?”

Her words were clearly intended to sting. Angela drove one of her hands into her hair, visibly frustrated.

“Ever since I found out how much of an asshole you are.”

“How about you see me as a character shaping exercise?”

“Are you serious?”

“Of course.”

Angela looked at her like she’s crazy.

“Oh, don’t look at me like that.”

“It’s very hard not to.”

“Remember how you would interrupt our design sessions for the Valkyrie series with your silly consultation hours?”

“They weren’t silly… They were important for the patients. What’s your point anyways?”

“You were always stuck helping little people, when your genius could’ve benefitted humanity as a whole! Think of that metal boy of yours: We could’ve performed even more miracles together, if it wasn’t for all those distractions.”

The doctor looked away without really denying the point, but still highly annoyed. It sounded like this wasn’t the first time this argument was taking place. Angela was intent on not going further into this, so she quickly changed the topic.

“What are you planning to use your niece for?”

Moira looked thoroughly surprised, yet still in a way where it’s impossible to tell if she’s sincere or not.

“Me? Using sweet Emily?”

Angela grew annoyed and went back to glowering at Moira.

“Don’t play dumb. Somebody’s been messing with her family and now she’s the heir apparent.”

Moira frowned.

“They’re my family, too, you know.”

Angela laughed, crossing her arms.

“Your family once removed.”

“True, but the point still stands.”

“Since when did you care about family at all anyway?”

Moira gave her a sour look.

“I’ve always cared about sweet Emily.”

Angela furrowed her eyebrows and grew exceedingly angry.

“Then _maybe_ you should stop being blind about what _your_ organization wants to do to her!”

She had enough. Angela rushed down the pathway, past her former fiancé, not missing the chance to half-tackle into her shoulder, hard. Moira blinked a few times, staring after her. The Irish woman visibly deflated, the strain of their conversation finally making it’s mark. Her thoughts were with Angela for a little while longer.

“Still after all these years, what a shame”, Moira mumbled. “We were complimenting each other so well.”

Then she shrugged and grinned, turning to leave the campus.   

“Eh. Who needs a conscience anyway?”

 

 

* * *

 

 

“It’s awesome here, isn’t it?”

Widow just now put a rather small piece of beef via fork into her mouth. She blinked once, then twice. Tracer smiled at her, radiating like a small sun in an almost blinding fashion. Widow took her time, finishing the small piece of meat before answering. She inwardly agreed that this establishment had a rustic charm to it.

“It’s acceptable.”

“How’s your beef?”

Widow thought about how to go about this while Tracer excitedly waited for an answer. In truth, she used to be unable to taste much at all. She was spoiled by Reaper’s good cooking ever since her senses grew more vibrant again, but he couldn’t compare to expertly prepared Iberian livestock.

“It’s… acceptable.”

Tracer looked like somebody hit her with a baseball bat, hearing that mediocre assessment of something that would probably cost her a relative fortune.

“G-Great, I’m relieved you like it.”

_Cute._

The word just came to mind. It was a tiny bit irritating, but Widow smirked nonetheless.

“Thank you for the invitation.”

Lena instantly brightened up in surprise.

“Oh, no problem luv!”

She seemed starved for an actual conversation. There also seemed to be questions bubbling underneath the surface, with Lena barely stemming the flood.

“Say, why did you accept, if you don’t mind a girl askin’?”

Widow took a moment to think about her answer, finishing another rather small piece of meat in the meanwhile.

“I came because of the promise you made to me.”

“I promised something?”

“Oui.”

Lena blinked a few times. It dawned on her that she was being baited with the proverbial fishing pole.

“Well then! Wanna jog my memory, luv?”

A bit weary, Lena took another bite of her beefsteak while Widow smirked at her with amusement.

“You said you would be there whenever I might be in need of a… target.”

Lena choked on her food. Her eating utensils were placed back on the table and she quickly tried solving the issue with the guzzling of wine. In the meanwhile, Widow patiently waited for her date to finish choking.

“I wasn’t quite talking about being target practice! I meant more like… when you stop killing people, the two of us could be spending more time together. Like right now?”

The words came out quiet, so that the other guests around them couldn’t follow their conversation. Widow’s gaze quickly grew bored. She scowled with disappointment and averted her eyes.

“You lied.”

“I didn’t!”

The French woman sighed for effect.

“It was foolish of me to trust you.”

“Come on! You barely tried! Isn’t this fun?”

Amber eyes rolled around.

“So. Much. Fun.”

She was indeed having fun right now, even if she didn’t show it. It was just too amusing, watching the frustration grow on her rivals face.

_Just a bit further…_

“Well… okay. We could go to a nightclub afterwards. Dancing will be fun! I know a few-“

“Not interested.”

Lena blinked a few times, baffled.

“Wha-...?”

“Are you deaf? I said: I am not interested.”

The little Brit was at the brink of losing her cool. It became harder to feign annoyance for Widow, for goading Lena was a lot more enjoyable than she had expected. Her amber eyes stared intently at the little Brit. She already developed plans of what to use as a weapon if this escalated into conflict. Her mind settled on the cutlery.

To her surprise, Lena suddenly simmered down.

_Oh?_

She let out a heavy sigh of resignation and put her attention back on the steak.

“What a shame.”

A few moments passed before Widow followed suit in turning her attention back to the meal. She was a bit blindsided at how out of character Lena had been just now. She eyed her curiously every now and then, until the little Brit continued.

“I was looking forward to have a go with a skilled dancer like you.”

Widow narrowed her eyes as she brought another piece of meat to her lips. While chewing, she tried to gauge Lena for ill intent, but couldn’t find any.

_The little fool probably thinks she can woo me._

Even though she growled in her thoughts, Widow had grown weak to compliments over time. They chipped at her armor more than they used to.

“Understandable for an amateur. Of course, you would only be in my way.”

“So… you’re saying you can’t do it?”

Lena looked up with honest interest and just a tiny bit of a smirk on the side.

“I can’t do what?”

“You’re not skilled enough to compensate for dancing with a mere amateur like me.”

Widow’s eyebrow twitched.

“Tch, this is the most ridiculous-“

“So you can’t do it.”

They stared at each other.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Widow studied the giant crystal chandelier above the dancefloor, trying to figure out how she was tricked into coming here. Or why this felt so familiar. Lena stood next to her, wearing a purple button-up shirt with the topmost three open, slightly out of breath from the way Widow had spun her about on the dancefloor. She leaned back against the bar, resting her arms on it.

“You’re really awesome at this!”

“And you are not.”

“Hey hey, cut me some slack! I was good at keeping up, wasn’t I?”

“I lead you on more than anything. We’ll have to work on your performance, _chérie_.”

Widow regretted her words a tiny bit as she saw Lena’s beaming smile out of the corner of her eye.

“You’re enjoying this!”

“Terribly.”

Her sarcastic tone was intentionally misleading. The DJ was playing a particularly catchy tune of smooth jazz right now and she had a fresh glass of champagne in her hand, so not all was bad. The nightclub Lena had walked her to was more than a little elegant; it was in fact exactly her style of extravagant.

“But you don’t dislike it, do you?”

The prying was a bit annoying, but Widow wasn’t feeling like lying anymore.

“I don’t dislike it, no.”

“What do you normally do with your free time?”

Lena sounded perfectly casual and interested. It was a weird feeling, just talking without any tension.

“Practice.”

“Just practice?”

“A glass of champagne in the evening.”

“That’s it?”

Widow hesitated for moment.

“I also like to read.”

“Reading, huh? What are you reading right now?”

“…a romance.”

“Reeeally now.”

Lena slowly raised her head curiously as Widow stifled a cough. The amount of alcohol today helped make her cheeks fluster. Lena attempted to continue the conversation, but Widow was faster.

“DON’T ask. And no, I’m not going to let you borrow it.”

“Hey hey, no problem luv! I just wanna know more about you. You can tell me when you feel like it.”

Widow took a large sip from her glass. She wanted to give a fiery retort, but found a surprising lack of vigor on her part. The response was partly mumbled instead.

“Don’t count on it.”

Lena just smiled.

“That’s fine. You know, we can do this more often, if you like. I don’t mind spending time-“

Widow interrupted her sharply.

“Shut up already. You’re insufferable…”

Without much fanfare, she emptied her glass, put it back on the counter and pushed herself away from it, into the direction of the dance floor. She took Lena by the hand while doing so, forcibly dragging her along for another round of ‘practice’.

Lena quickly finished her own drink and failed to put it on the counter in time. The glass shattered on the floor instead, drowned out by the noise of the night club and Lena’s giggles.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Emily threw her arms into the air, enormously relieved.

“Woohoo!”

She and Hana were sitting on the floor, leaning against Hana’s couch and playing some kind of anime brawler game against one another. A little girl in a cute outfit was jumping up and down, celebrating victory on top of the body of a big, burly and beaten sumo ringer. Judging by the bars at the top, the girl won by a sliver of health.

“Sheesh, you’re improving way too fast. Rematch! I want a rematch!”

Hana’s eye twitched with irritation. Emily pondered on poking a bit more into the wound, but decided against it.

“You’re still way better than me, though~”

“You’re just saying that so I’ll go easy on you!”

The little Korean laughed happily and developed a big smile. Emily secretly rolled with her eyes.

_She’s still a total sucker for compliments._

The announcer in the game began to count down the timer for the next game.

“So, any progress on your story yet, Hana?”

“Nah! I just… can’t find my muse, y’know? How’s it going with you, Miji?”

“You don’t have to use my screen name…”

_“Round 2”_

_“Fight!”_

The sumo ringer deftly closed the distance and slapped the little anime girl around, though the retort came quickly. Given her occupation, Emily didn’t have much trouble talking while concentrating on the game, so she continued.

“There wasn’t much… time over Christmas, but I’ll manage. I never knew you needed something like a muse though. Usually you’re just a bubbly whirlpool of cute ideas, aren’t you?”

Hana suddenly fidgeted uncomfortably. The little girl on the screen used the chance to grab the big sumo ringer and enact a special attack that sent him flying. The little Korean mumbled a curse under her breath before she continued.

“Well… I’m kinda stumped since Sagrada stopped talking to me.”

“Sagrada? Isn’t she the girl who always reviews my chapters?”

“You say ‘review’, but it’s reeeally more emotional abuse, isn’t it…”

“Well, she’s a bit up front with how she dislikes my writing style, but there’s plenty of constructive criticism to draw out of that one.”

“Like?”

“Like that one time I substituted Doomfist with a sentient, humanity-hating giraffe. I mean, there were hints of such a character in the lore, but what was I thinking?”

“Hey, I’m still sad that you killed Harold the giraffe off!”

“Yeah, that was his name… You’re in the minority there, Hana.”

The sumo ringer was making a goofy victory dance right now after flooring the little anime girl. She was lying on the floor, catching her breath, before getting back up for the last bout.

“Anyways, she’s pretty gone right now.”

“Any idea why?”

_“Round 3”_

_“Fight!”_

“Well, she was fed up with you being the most popular, like usual. It’s… kinda weird, but I think she’s planning something.”

Emily suddenly had a bad feeling, as if some things began to add up, but it just didn’t click in her head yet. She sighed.

“Planning something, huh? I hope she doesn’t do something stupid, like mess with my job or Lena… If I had the choice, she could be the most popular no problem.”

“You’re a saint, Miji, you know that?”

The redhead nibbled on her lower lip while using a particularly nasty hit combo on the sumo ringer that had her pink girl assault him with magic missiles.

“Nah, I’m just reacting like any decent person would.”

Hana, exasperated from Emily’s maneuvers, began trying harder, but her counterattack was thwarted.

“How did you block that?!”

“Skill!”

Emily giggled. She had adopted the proper application of that word a few weeks ago while playing with Hana. The constant firework of graphical effects almost came to its conclusion with both fighters health bars on a mere sliver of health.

_„Let them eat cake.“_

Just as the two fighters were about to clash, Emily’s phone started ringing. Widow’s voice brought a shiver to both their spines, being fans and all. She paused the game quickly and accepted the call.

_“I… don’t even feel the co-“_

“Yes?”

Hana watched her curiously while trying to figure out her move after they would be unpausing.

“Yes? … What are you … They WHAT? And you’re okay?”

Hana practically fell over as Emily just spontaneously began shouting

“You have to be kidding … No need, I’m on my way … I’ll hurry, give me ten minutes please.”

That’s where Emily quit the call and stood up, reaching for her jacket on Hana’s bed. The little Korean was visibly flabbergasted that their game would have to be postponed.

“You’re going?”

“Yes, something came up…”

“Something? What something? Come on, at least tell me what it is!”

Emily sighed heavily, already reaching for the door handle of the small room.

“No can do, Hana, sorry. You can probably read about it tomorrow in the newspaper though.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

_ About fifteen minutes earlier _

The DJ was playing an exotic song, slowly picking up in pace every now and then. Lena was starting to get the hang of it, yet still tripped up once in a while when she was sent to do a slightly more complicated move like a pirouette. They talked as quietly as they could and as loud as they needed to be to not get drowned out from the club noises.

“Don’t tense up.”

“Sorrey!”

“Just follow my lead.”

They were the stars of the dancefloor. Most other pairs on the floor were barely adapt at dancing, giving them sidelong glances, admiring their comparably intricate performance. Some even recognized Tracer, judging from the conversation parts that were coherent through the noise. Lena got increasingly bothered by that fact, as it brought gossip. Everybody knew that Tracer had a new girlfriend – and the blue haired vixen certainly wasn’t it.

“I said: Stop tensing up!”

Widow’s words were hissed as Lena almost tripped again.

“I’m trying, luv!", Lena answered breathlessly.

“Well, try harder”, Widow growled back.

The song eventually transitioned seamlessly into another one, much slower and romantic than the last. At that point Widow changed her pattern accordingly and drew Lena in close, lead with one hand and held her by the waist with the other. Their faces were mere inches apart. Lena gasped slightly and adjusted as well.

“Am I doing this right?”

“A little slower. Relax.”

Despite their little scuffle, the atmosphere turned intimate. They practically had to stare at each other up close. Time went by without a mistake by Lena, as there wasn’t much to be doing wrong, just slowly waltzing with each other, giving her a much needed breather.

“I’m sorry for taking a while to get it.”

Lena laughed a bit awkwardly while Widow didn’t know what to with her partners seemingly endless supply of optimism.

“… don’t worry about it.”

They danced in silence for a few moments.

“Hey…”

“Yes?”

“Thanks for teaching me.”

Widow was about to answer, when the déjà vu hit her. She finally understood why this was feeling familiar.

_This is one of her stories, isn’t it?_

The realization irritated her somewhat, but it wasn’t entirely unwelcome. On the contrary, it felt a bit exciting.

_Sure, the steak house was a luxurious restaurant and our conversation went differently, but everything else fits, even up to the clothes. She set this up, didn’t she?_

Widow knew the story by heart, knew what her answer would be. Widow hesitated to conform to this charade, but the artist in her craved to play the part. So she smiled deviously.

“If we’re going to do this more often, you have to be trained… thoroughly.”

The liberal use of the word ‘training’ gave Lena a slight shiver, but she was also just glad that Widow grew less distant. Being the daring hero she was, she left her rivals lead and instead held her with both hands by the slender waist.

“I’m looking forward to doing this with you a lot, luv.”

A smirk developed on her lips as her date actually competed for initiative. Widow tried to remember what her part at this point in the story had been. A now free hand went up to Lena’s chin and adjusted it upwards ever so slightly. Her voice was but a purr.

“Don’t think about next time, _chérie_.”

Lena gasped quietly, her cheeks flushed with color. The Tracer in the story had made a feisty comeback, but this Lena was too drunk and horny to be of any use. _No matter,_ thought Widow.

“I’m not finished with you yet.”

Curiosity about how it might feel, to re-enact the scene, overwhelmed her. She approached her prey with expertly tease, reveling in the feeling of warm breath against her lips, until they found each other. The feeling was more grandious than Widow remembered. It pulled her in, just for a little while longer. Gradually, fireworks went off in her chest. Her hand wandered downwards to her partners waist, still slowly dancing with her to the music.

They parted time and again to catch their breath. Each time they agreed, silently staring into each others eyes, that neither wanted this moment to pass.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Like almost always, Anderson was feeling tired. It was a decent date, up until now. The dinner had been great. If things would continue the way they were, the night would be even better. Given that he didn’t just fall asleep at some point.

“So, Thorvi, you work for a newspaper? Like, which one?”

Anderson drank generously from his cocktail before answering. He and his date , somebody he would describe as a ‘cute blonde’, were leaning against the bar, facing towards each other.

“The Evening Standard. You know it, Jess?”

“Isn’t that, like, totally old-school?”

Jessica had a carefully amused look. It was a half-hearted attempt not to offend.

“Sure. Working there has a… certain charm to it. What do you do for work?”

“Oh, I’m, like, totally into neuroscience! Brain waves and stuff.”

“You’re-”

Jessica kept talking. She was good at that. While she did that, she kept looking around the room now and again.

“I’m a certified neurologist! I work in neurosurgery at King’s Cross. If you ever find yourself with Parkinson or, like, multiple sclerosis, I’ll probably be your doc, haha! So, like, do you meet any celebritiiies at work?”

Thorvald blinked a few times. He looked at his drink suspiciously for a second.

“Oh… Yeah, tons of ‘em.”

Jessica leaned a bit into him with bubbling curiosity.

“Wow! Like, who?”

He quickly found his balance again and smiled handsomely. As reporter, Thorvald knew his way around gossip girls. They were always the easiest to impress.

“You know, just the other day we had Tracer in for an interview. _The_ Tracer. Incredibly charming girl.”

“Really?! Wow! Can you introduce us, Thorvi?!”

The blonde girl was practically blinding him with her star-struck gaze.

“I could call in some favors from a colleague, haha. Not that I’m saying our reporters are crazy popular, but one of my good fr- erm, that female colleague actually goes out with her.”

Jessica looked at him with thinly veiled disgust.

“Whoa. That Tracer’s, like, not very faithful then, is she?”

Thorvald raised an eyebrow in confusion.

“How come?”

“She’s, like, totally making out over there. That’s not your colleague, is it?”

His eyes followed where Jessica was pointing him to. Right there smack dab in the middle of the dance floor, Tracer was unmistakably making out with a very extravagant looking, blue haired woman while slow-dancing to a romantic song. They both seemed to be very into it.

“That girl looks _way_ too high society. Like, no offense.”

“Yeah, that’s… not my colleague.” _She’s probably home alone right now._

Normally, Thorvald was a very laid back kind of man. He was wide awake right now, quickly losing his cool.

“…excuse me for second.”

“Hey Thorvi, you’re not gonna…”

Driven by impulse and anger, he quickly left Jessica at the bar and pushed through the other club guests, trying to get to the center of the dance floor. As he reached it, he gripped tightly onto Lena’s shoulder and pulled her back, forcefully. Gasps could be heard through the song’s sound veil from curious onlookers all around them. Lena stared at him with flushed cheeks, blinking wildly, thoroughly confused as to what was going on.

“Thorvald? What-”

Lena seemed to recognize him from the few times they talked. It also seemed to dawn on her that this was bad.

“What do you think you’re doing?!”

“Wait, I can explain! Emi-“

He couldn’t even hear her finish the sentence. Something decked him hard. He stumbled backwards and ultimately fell onto the dance floor like a log. He saw stars. In the distance, he heard Jessica shriek something with ‘like’ in it.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Lena watched in disbelieve as the handsome half-Norwegian hit the parquet.

“Why-..Why’d you hit him?!”

She looked back to Widow. To her surprise the French lady seemed to be slightly out of breath and thoroughly flustered.

“ _Ce chien insolent le méritait!_ He put his hands on you, why didn’t you do it yourself?!”

Lena looked at her, exasperated. A cool and hateful demeanor returned to Widowmaker. She looked at the source of disruption in disgust, her hands clenched into fists. She moved towards him.

“He… he’s one of Emily’s colleagues, he probably just misunderstood what we’re doing!”

Widow hiked up her dress on one side, producing something capable of reflecting the lights on the dance floor from her upper thigh. Lena’s eyes grew wide.

“Are you crazy?!”

She reacted quickly, rushing to put Widow into a hold around the shoulders. The French woman grunted slightly and turned her head. She stared at Lena through a cold-blooded gaze.

“LET. GO.”

“No I will bloody well not! You’re not gonna murder someone on our date!”

Slowly, the people around them became aware of what’s going on. The word ‘murder’ was explicit enough, but those that recognized the butterfly-style knife in Widow’s hand began to positively panic.

It seemed to be a stalemate between the two, at least until a shrieking blonde woman approached them. She quickly checked on Thorvald in a curiously professional manner. The guy was already rubbing his temple, leaning up onto his elbow.

“You slut! That’s, like, at least a concussion you gave my boyfriend!”

The blonde woman, visibly frustrated, decided not only on the especially stupid idea of approaching them, but also to throw her drink into Widow’s face.

Lena was shocked. The music ended in a record scratch. More and more people around them were set into panic, running for their lives. The few that remained got to fully appreciate just how much Thorvald and Jessica had fucked up tonight, as they could all observe how generously applied makeup slowly gave way for the blue skin of a known assassin on a face full of white rage.

 

 

* * *

 

 

The scenery before her was bizarre: Hastily abandoned drinks were shattered across the floor. There were remnants of furniture, in part or otherwise. The whole room was deserted, save for two women assaulting each other with whatever they could get their hands on.

“You had to go ahead and break our fucking deal! How hard is it not to kill people?!”

Widow had to evade a bottle of whiskey flying by her head, shattering not far away. The irony was probably lost on Lena.

“That’s just because you’re too cowardly to defend your own dignity!”

“Uhm-“

Emily tried to say something, but was interrupted by Lena’s highly aggravated shouting.

“I don’t need to defend myself by overreacting like a maniac!”

Widow threw her knife, since she didn’t have any use for it in ranged combat anyway. Lena evaded in time, but instead got hit by a table lamp right after.

“You’re pathetic, just like your attempts at dancing! I don’t know why I even bother with this charade!”

Lena rubbed her nose, a bit light in the head after that lamp. She growled and picked up the next best bottle.

“If YOU weren’t so damned impatient, maybe I would learn faster!”

During that exchange, they threw with more and more ordinance at each other. Emily tried to interject, carefully navigating the broken shards on the floor.

“Wasted effort on someone that won’t even dress properly to a date!”

“Girls..?”

“So that’s improper?! Who of us wanted to murder someone _during the date_?!”

“GIRLS!”

The two of them stopped dead in their tracks, as if they just now realized that their mutual friend was standing there.

_Huh, didn’t think that would work._

They looked at her expectantly. Lena was standing behind the bar and had a bottle of fine rosé in her hand while Widow had been in the process of throwing one of the bar stools.

“Uhm, I’m sorry to interrupt you two. Could we go home?”

They still looked at her with bewilderment. Emily started to fidget around, smiling with a mix of worry and tiredness.

“I’m… parking without a ticket right now. So sooner would be better.”

The two of them looked at each other, then back to Emily. Widow neatly put the bar stool back down and Lena slowly emerged from behind the bar.

“This… was getting tiresome anyway.”

“Yeah, I… think we should get going, luv.”

They left the establishment in awkward silence.

 

 

* * *

 

 

It was already dark outside. The traffic was a bit thick and slow, but manageable. Emily watched them now and again through the rear mirror. Adorably enough, they both seemed too embarrassed to sit in the front with her. Lena accidentally brought the bottle of Rosé along and already found her calling in a quest to the bottom. The silence was deafening, so Emily tried to start a conversation.

“Uhm… don’t worry about the club. Winston told the authorities that you two clashed like usual.”

The silence persisted for a while, so she tried again.

“Did you have fun on your date?”

Lena just drank heavily. Widow didn’t say anything at all, but rather glanced outside.

“It can’t have been that bad?”

It wasn’t long until Widow snatched the bottle away from Lena, so she could have some, too.

“Hey, give it back..!”

“The food was alright.”, Widow stated matter-of-factly. Lena tried to get the bottle back, but the current owner kept her at bay by one-handedly shoving Lena’s face away.

“Anything else?”

“Well. Dancing was…”

One of Widow’s eyes twitched. It’s as if her body was resisting to tell the truth.

“…surprisingly fun.”

It was as if sunrise had decided to arrive early today, less than a meter from her face. Widow grimaced and lifted her hand off that surface in fear of getting burned.

“You mean it?”

Lena forgot all about the bottle and looked like a puppy more than ready to be pet. 

“Why does that even matter to you?”

The little Brit giggled drunkenly and blindsided her with a quick hug.

“Because I want you to enjoy yourself, stupid!”

The grimace persisted. She tried to shove Lena’s face away again, this time from cozying up to her shoulder.

“I’m NOT enjoying you clinging to me.”

“You totally did when we were doing it on the dance floor!”

Emily got struck by a coughing fit while Widow tried to divert attention from their make-out session earlier.

“Shouldn’t you be wearing a seat belt? Over there?”

“D’aww, you’re worried about meee~"

Widow sighed in frustration and gave up. She let the drunken Lena cuddle up to her and eventually settled on putting an arm around the smaller body. Since there was no resistance anymore, drunk Lena dared to go even further.

“Will you stay with us tonight, luv?”

Since the possibility hadn't even crossed her mind, Widow was caught off-guard. She almost answered, but then just breathed out, thinking about all the implications while drinking a bit more sweet wine. Her voice was measured and boding.

“Don’t press your luck. You’ll be regretting this.”

The drivers pair of eyes that watched them through the rear mirror joined the conversation.

“We’d… love to have you over for the night.”

“Yeah, it’ll be fun!”

Lena sat up against her body and looked at her full of hope in her puppy-like way. Their combined enthusiasm annoyed her. A comment full of snark is what she wanted to answer with, but it seemingly got stuck in her throat. Something about being wanted like this made her soft, which only served to annoy Widow further. After breathing through for a moment, Widow decided that she would keep her word. She would make them regret. She gazed at the rear mirror, narrowing her amber eyes with a hint of malice to the one that was responsible for all of this. Emily realized that her jig was up and held her breath.

“I guess one night won’t hurt me...”, Widow whispered with dark undertones. Her arm around Lena went deeper, slipped beneath her jeans to grab a healthy handful. The poor, drunk girl took a sharp intake of breath, but was granted no time to recover. Widow’s other hand grabbed her by the chin, forcing her to face a sadistic smile.

“.. but I can’t guarantee the same for the two of you.”

Widow immediately went to work on the backseats, producing squeals of terror (and the occasional giggle) from poor, dunk Lena.

Emily was condemned to watch anxiously. It would be a long, exciting drive home, most of which Emily tried her best to resist the urge of steering one-handed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have to say, it was incredibly jarring to try and have Widow and Tracer react in character with this context. The kissing scene for example: I rewrote that an approximate 8 times. It actually started with Tracer initiating the kiss at one point. That felt wrong on so many levels.  
> So, this took four months to make, just as an indicator of how much trouble I had. Sorry for that...  
> The next won't take as long. I'm already 2k words into it. It's much more fun to write once they're already past the niceties, if ya know what I mean ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
> 
> The inspiration for the club scene and all the dancing came from Death Parade: A delightfully thoughtful anime about whatever happens to your soul after death.  
> If you don't know what I mean, please enjoy this opening: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_DwbXmr70C0
> 
> Thank you for your time, dearest reader! I'm excited to read your thoughts in the comments ♡✧( ु•⌄• )


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